SCIENTOMETRICS AND PEER EVALUATION

This work describes a correlation between scientometric data and peer ranking carried out among 40 Brazilian researchers responsible for 54% of all papers published by Brazilians in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology, in the last ten years. Scientists were rated by their peers on a four-point scale being four the highest level. Evaluation was based on formal and informal professional contacts over a number of years, within the scientific community. Scores awarded independently by the 19 raters showed remarkable agreement even for self-evaluation, and there was evidence of a strong sense of hierarchy. There was also a great correlation between this ranking and scientometric data (number of publications, citations and total impact factor). From these results, some tentative conclusions can be drawn about talent and revolutionary thinking in scientific research. Scientometric data are proposed as a complementary tool for scientific evaluation.