Library Help: Office For Open Research

What is CNCI?

The Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) is a metric developed by Clarivate Analytics to assess the citation performance of research relative to other publications in the same field. It normalises citation counts by taking into account the differences in citation behaviours across various research fields, publication types, and time periods.

The CNCI is calculated by dividing the number of citations a publication has received by the expected number of citations for similar publications within its field, publication type, and publication year. This normalisation allows researchers to compare the impact of their work more fairly, regardless of discipline-specific citation patterns.

An CNCI value of 1.00 means that the publication has received the expected number of citations for its field. A value greater than 1.00 indicates that the paper has been cited more than expected, while a value less than 1.00 means that the paper has been cited less than expected, based on the field’s average.

Why is CNCI useful?

CNCI provides a useful and contextually rich way of assessing the impact of research by normalising citation data, which addresses several challenges:

1. Cross-Field Comparisons: Different fields of research have different citation practices. For example, life sciences may generate many citations compared to mathematics or social sciences. CNCI allows you to compare research impact across different disciplines by adjusting for these variations, enabling fairer comparisons between fields.

2. Contextualised Citation Impact: CNCI takes into account factors such as publication age, field of study, and publication type. This means that the citation count is placed in context, providing a more accurate picture of a paper's true academic impact.

3. Assessing Research Quality: By normalising citations, CNCI offers a way to evaluate the quality of research output more equitably. A paper or researcher with a CNCI greater than 1.00 may indicate that their work is having a greater impact on their field than the average publication.

How is CNCI Calculated?

The CNCI is calculated by dividing the actual number of citations received by a publication by the expected number of citations for publications of similar type, age, and in the same category (i.e., research field or subfield).

The formula for CNCI is:

• CNCI > 1.00 indicates that the paper has received more citations than expected for its field.
• CNCI = 1.00 means the paper has received the expected number of citations for its field.
• CNCI < 1.00 means the paper has received fewer citations than expected for its field.

How is CNCI Used?

1. Research Evaluation: CNCI is commonly used by institutions, funding bodies, and journals to assess the impact of research. Researchers can (with care) use CNCI to benchmark their own work and evaluate the collective impact of their research output.

2. Institutional and National Rankings: CNCI is often used in institutional and national rankings to compare the research performance of universities and research organisations. It helps to identify institutions that produce highly impactful research, relative to their peers.

3. Grant and Promotion Applications: CNCI can serve as evidence of research impact in applications for grants, promotions, or tenure. A high CNCI can be an indicator of a researcher’s or institution's strong academic performance, showing that their work has had a significant impact compared to others in their field.

Platforms for CNCI

1. Web of Science:

   • Web of Science is the primary platform for calculating CNCI. It indexes a broad range of journals and provides citation data that allows for the calculation of CNCI at the level of individual articles, authors, or institutions.

2. InCites:

   • InCites is a research evaluation tool also provided by Clarivate that uses Web of Science citation data to generate CNCI. InCites offers a suite of metrics, including CNCI, for assessing research performance at the level of authors, institutions, or even entire countries. It provides deeper analytical tools to help users interpret CNCI data, track trends, and benchmark performance.

How to find CNCI in Web of Science and InCites

To find CNCI data for a specific paper, author, or institution in Web of Science, follow these steps:

1. Log In to Web of Science using the link available via Library Search:

2. Search for the Paper or Author:

   • You can search by the title of a paper, the name of an author, or the name of an institution to find citation data.

3. Review the CNCI Information:

   • Once you have found the relevant paper or author, look at the citation overview for the CNCI score. If CNCI is available, Web of Science will display the value, indicating how the paper or author compares to the average citation count in their field.
      

4. Use InCites for Further Analysis:

   • For a more detailed analysis of CNCI at the institutional or author level, you can access InCites. It offers tools to examine CNCI data in the context of larger datasets, enabling benchmarking against other researchers or institutions.

Further reading

For more details on CNCI, including how it is calculated and how to use it, you can refer to Clarivate’s detailed guide on CNCI in Web of Science and InCites: Clarivate CNCI Guide