Ranking Institutions within a Discipline

Corvinus Research Excellence Awarded Balázs R. Sziklai, associate professor at Corvinus University of Budapest has published a new paper in Journal of Informetrics.

 
The author presents a novel algorithm to rank smaller academic entities such as university departments or research groups within a research discipline. The Weighted Top Candidate (WTC) algorithm is a generalisation of an expert identification method. The axiomatic characterisation of WTC shows why it is especially suitable for scientometric purposes. The key axiom is stability — the selected institutions support each other’s membership.

The WTC algorithm, upon receiving an institution citation matrix, produces a list of institutions that can be deemed experts of the field. With a parameter they can adjust how exclusive their list should be. By completely relaxing the parameter, they obtain the largest stable set – academic entities that can qualify as experts under the mildest conditions. With a strict setup, they obtain a short list of the absolute elite.

The author demonstrates the algorithm on a citation database compiled from game theoretic literature published between 2008–2017. By plotting the size of the stable sets with respect to exclusiveness, they can obtain an overview of the competitiveness of the field. The diagram hints at how difficult it is for an institution to improve its position.

Balázs R. Sziklai is an associate professor at Corvinus University of Budapest and a research fellow at the Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (CERS). He joined the Momentum Game Theory Research Group at CERS in 2010 and the faculty of Corvinus in 2015. He received his PhD in applied mathematics at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest in 2016. In 2021, he received the Bolyai Research Scholarship and the Corvinus Research Excellence Award.

Sziklai, B. (2021). Ranking institutions within a discipline: The steep mountain of academic excellence. JOURNAL OF INFORMETRICS, 15(2).