Evaluation of social relevance of applied health research: a rough indicator may be the significance of publishing in national professional journals

Abstract

Evaluation of health research output can have important implications for departments, institutes and individual careers. Typically, a peer review of the scientific quality of the output is central in this evaluation, increasingly with a bibliometric analysis at its core. Such an analysis is based on counting publications and citations from journals included in the (Social) Science Citation Index. Although the methodology is still far from perfect, there seems to be consensus on how to evaluate the scientific quality. This is in contrast to the evaluation of the social relevance of health research output, as there is no agreement on its importance, the dimensions involved, or the relevant methods of assessment. There is a need for the assessment of the social impact of applied health research, next to its scientific quality. As an initial rough approximation, counting publications in national professional journals may provide a suitable indicator of the social relevance of the research output.