There are many ways to evaluate the impact of a research funding programme like IHI and IMI. Publishing in scientific journals is how researchers tell the world that they have achieved an important result, uncovered an interesting finding, made an unexpected discovery or learned something new. Analysing the scientific publications that are produced by the programme is one way to determine whether the IMI and IHI programmes are delivering key results that will progress health research.
Every year, the IHI Programme Office commissions a bibliometrics report to investigate our publications record. The latest report was carried out by Nature Research Intelligence, which covers papers published from 2010 to 2023. A shorter version covering the main highlights was also produced.
IHI's Executive Director, Niklas Blomberg, said: “This report demonstrates that the international, public-private, cross-sector approach championed by IHI and IMI is delivering high quality scientific results. IMI is leaving an impressive legacy of more than 11 300 papers, a significant share of which consistently appear in the top 10% of highly cited papers worldwide, and IHI has made a strong start towards following in those footsteps.”
Here’s some of the key take-aways from the report:
IMI has published more than 11 000 research papers to date
From the graph below, you can see how, year on year, IMI published progressively more research papers, reaching a peak in 2021. The total number of papers published amounts to 11 389, and over the past five years an average of more than 1220 publications per year have been produced. The programme ended in 2020 and as a result, publications have begun to decrease again. Nevertheless, in 2023 IMI projects generated 1,060 publications.
IMI and IMI have global reach
In total, 133 countries have at least one paper funded by IMI and there are 67 countries which have 10 or more IMI publications.
Sixteen countries have been affiliated with IHI funded research to date, with Sweden leading the geographical landscape by IHI publication volume (four), followed by the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and the United States (all contributing three). Australia and Japan are the only other countries outside of the EU27+UK who have IHI funded publications attributed to them.
IMI papers have a citation impact score nearly twice that of the world average
The number of citations a paper receives is at least partly determined by the field to which it relates and the year of publication. Papers published about disciplines such as biomedicine and social sciences typically receive more citations than papers published in engineering, and older publications tend to accumulate higher citation counts than more recent research because they have had more time to accrue them. In the report generated by Nature Research Intelligence, field normalized citation impact is used to allow comparison between years and research fields.
IMI papers had a field normalized citation impact score nearly twice that of the world average (1.86), and 36% greater than the EU27+UK at 1.37 (Figure 6.3.1).
International collaboration results in higher citation rates
The more countries affiliated to an IMI funded research paper, the higher the citation impact of that paper, the analysis found. This demonstrates the power of international collaboration. IMI funded papers with five or more affiliated countries have citation rates more than three times the world average.
Figure 6.3.2: Field normalized citation impact across funding programmes 2010–2023*
Figure 8.1.1: Mean field normalized citation impact for IMI project research compared with the ten selected comparators, 2010–2023
Large quantity of IMI research papers make the top 10% most cited list
The analysis examined how many of IMI funded papers were in the top 10% of highly cited papers globally by research field. The analysis showed that since 2010, IMI has consistently had a higher share of cited papers in the top 10% than several leading regions – China, EU27 +UK, Japan and the United States. The best year was 2019, when 27.5% of IMI papers were in the top 10%.
Figure 8.2.1: Trends in share of highly cited (top 10%) papers from total number of papers per year — IMI funded research compared with selected comparators regions 2010–2023
Data criteria: To compare against the selected comparator regions for highly cited papers (top 1% and 10% most cited), only articles and reviews published in journals housing IMI or IHI papers have been included.
IHI on track to deliver a similar record
Although it’s early days for IHI, the report highlighted that 4 peer-reviewed publications have been published to date, and out of those four, one is in the top 10% of highly cited articles for 2023.