citationdriven

Citationdriven is a term used to describe approaches, decisions, or frameworks that are guided primarily by citation data—counts, networks, and patterns derived from bibliographic databases. The word blends "citation" and "driven" and is common in discussions of research evaluation, scholarly communication, and policy design, where quantitative citation signals inform priorities.

In practice, citationdriven approaches appear in several contexts: research planning, where topics with strong anticipated citation impact are favored; funding and evaluation, where grant success or program priorities are influenced by citation metrics; and knowledge mapping, where co-citation networks reveal influential fields and relationships among ideas. Proponents argue that citationdriven signals offer scalable, data-informed insight into scholarly influence and trend emergence.

Critics, however, warn that reliance on citations can overemphasize established topics, reproduce disciplinary biases in database coverage and citation practices, and undervalue novelty, replication, or practical impact outside academia. To mitigate these issues, many institutions advocate combining citationdriven indicators with qualitative review, field-normalized metrics, and broader measures of quality and usefulness.

The term remains informal and describes a family of methods rather than a single standard. Related concepts include bibliometrics, scientometrics, co-citation analysis, h-index, impact factor, and altmetrics, as well as tools and databases such as Web of Science and Scopus. See also bibliometrics and scientometrics for core methodologies and debates surrounding the use of citation data in research assessment.