The Role of the NIH in the Development and Promotion of Citation Indexing and Analysis as Scientometric Tools

Abstract

The NIH played a pivotal role in supporting Eugene Garfield’s creation of the Science Citation Index (SCI). As well as being a valuable tool helping scientists to keep abreast of the current literature in their chosen fields, the SCI has for many years also served as the gold standard for a wide range of journal, article and even author rankings within the natural sciences. While supporting the development of the SCI advanced the NIH’s mission as a research center and funding agency, its initial involvement owes more to the NIH’s role and responsibilities as an agency of the federal government. Beginning in the early 1960s, the NIH was pressed by members of Congress to improve its communications programs; shortly thereafter, the NIH (jointly with the NSF) approved funding for Garfield’s proposal. A decade later, the NIH began to use analyses of the data in the index it had funded to evaluate the efficacy of its peer review system of ranking grant proposals, and to compare the efficiency of different funding mechanisms and programs. Correspondence and other material preserved in the archives of the NIH show that these actions were taken primarily in response to pressure from Congress, rather than the scientific community.