An academic productivity index: Integrating grant funding and publications

Quantitation of academic productivity among faculty members remains a challenge for leaders in academic medicine. Various metrics for assessing academic productivity of faculty members include summation of publications, citation indices and impact factors of journals in which faculty members have published, and tabulation of research and other types of external funding via receipt of competitive grants. The authors propose a novel index, the Academic Productivity Index, as an additional metric to compare the academic performance of faculty members. The proposed index relates academic products in terms of articles produced to the amount of grant funding awarded to a faculty member by using a ratio of publications to grant funding. Academic leaders may wish to consider use of this measure as one of many criteria to monitor faculty productivity and academic performance. Departments and institutions may consider pilot studies of the proposed index along with other in-place performance metrics when assessing annual performance and career progression of academic medicine faculty members. Modification of the terms of the proposed index for resonance with other established local markers may be useful for a consistent application of performance measures.

An academic productivity index: Integrating grant funding and publications Journal Articles