The impact factor: implications for research policy, editorial rules and scholarly reputation

The assessment of scientific research is essentially based on several metric parameters, the so-termed Impact Factor perhaps being the predominant one. Despite well-founded criticisms and the wide opposition of reputed scientists, this procedure has become a tool of scientific policy, and is applied in editorial procedures for scientific publication, the evaluation of research groups, the concession of grants, fellowships or even academic positions. Indeed, cutting-edge research is today a competitive and exigent task, where the legitimacy and restrictions of such metric factors remain a preoccupation. However, whatever the policy of evaluation implemented, most breakthroughs are revolutionary, and involve a change in a given paradigm, usually being made by unorthodox scientists, whose scholarly reputation may be questioned by the establishment, and who may often be excluded as a result of the current system of highly productive research.