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Paste your title, keywords or abstract. We match it against 28,582 journal papers published by PhD researchers on ScholarsColab and show where the closest work appeared, with each journal’s indexing (SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, ESCI, Scopus, JCR 2024).
How it works: no AI or language model is used. Your words are matched against the titles of real published papers by our mentors; journals are ranked by how many closely matching papers they published. Indexing comes from the SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, ESCI, Scopus and JCR 2024 lists, matched by journal name; “not found in our indexing lists” does not prove a journal is unindexed. Always check a journal’s scope and current indexing before submitting.
How to calculate an h-index
- List all papers with their citation counts.
- Sort them from most to least cited.
- Go down the list and find the last position where the citation count is still at least the position number.
- That position is the h-index.
| Rank | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citations | 48 | 21 | 9 | 5 | 4 | 1 |
| At least as many as the rank? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
In this example the h-index is 4: four papers have at least four citations each, but there are not five papers with at least five.
Real h-index data from PhD researchers
Across 891 ScholarsColab mentors with at least five dated papers, the median h-index calculated from their Google Scholar publication lists is 7; a quarter have an h-index of 13 or more.The h-index grows with career length, because papers need time to be cited. That is why comparing researchers at different career stages is unfair; see how the spread grows over a career in our guide to heteroskedasticity.
Why your h-index differs between databases
| Source | Usually | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Google Scholar | Highest | Counts citations from more sources, including theses, preprints and books |
| Scopus | Middle | Counts citations from Scopus-indexed sources |
| Web of Science | Often lowest | Counts citations from its more selective collection |
Strengths and limits
- Strength: it rewards steady, cited work rather than one famous paper or many uncited ones.
- Limit: it depends on field and career length.
- Limit: it ignores author order and the number of co-authors.
- Limit: self-citations can inflate it.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good h-index?
It depends on the field and career stage. Compare with researchers at a similar stage in the same field rather than using a single cut-off.
How is the h-index calculated?
Sort your papers by citations from highest to lowest; your h-index is the largest number h such that h papers have at least h citations each.
Why is my Google Scholar h-index higher than in Scopus?
Google Scholar counts citations from a wider range of sources, including some that Scopus and Web of Science do not index.
Does the h-index depend on the journals I publish in?
Indirectly. Papers in widely read, well-indexed journals tend to be cited more, which can raise your h-index over time.
What is the i10-index?
The i10-index, shown on Google Scholar, is the number of papers with at least 10 citations.
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