Delineating Organizations at CWTS A Story of Many Pathways

Abstract

In this chapter we discuss the history and development of an extensive and sophisticated system to identify, register and harmonize organization names in the academic realm. The system integrates the time-consuming and complex work of data-cleaning of author affiliations of publications. An extensive history of the work started in the eighties of last century and is described. We elaborate on the development of application of academic affiliations in research evaluation and university rankings. We also discuss the current work on this topic, the desktop research involved as well as the way forward for this type of research.