The International Mathematical Union just released a Citation Statistics Report that outlines the use of citations in assessing research quality.

Among the report’s key findings:

1.  Statistics are not more accurate when they are improperly used; statistics can mislead when they are misused or misunderstood.

2. The objectivity of citations is illusory because the meaning of citations is not well-understood. A citation’s meaning can be very far from “impact.”

3. While having a single number to judge quality is indeed simple, it can lead to a shallow under-standing of something as complicated as research. Numbers are not inherently superior to sound judgments.