Using metrics responsibly on an academic CV (DORA & the Leiden Manifesto)

By Basile Chrétien · PharmD, MSc, MPH · June 10, 2026 · 2 min read

How to present research metrics on a CV responsibly: why the Journal Impact Factor and h-index mislead, what field-normalized indicators add, and what DORA and the Leiden Manifesto recommend.

Metrics are a tempting shorthand on a CV, but they are easily misused — and committees increasingly expect researchers to use them responsibly. This guide explains which metrics mislead, which are more defensible, and what the main responsible-assessment frameworks recommend.

Why the Journal Impact Factor is the wrong tool

The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) measures a journal's average citations, not the quality or impact of your individual article. Citation distributions are highly skewed, so a single paper in a high-JIF journal tells a reader almost nothing about that paper. DORA — the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment — explicitly advises against using the JIF to assess individual research or researchers.

The h-index and raw counts have limits

The h-index and raw citation counts depend heavily on field and career length, so they are not comparable across disciplines and disadvantage early-career researchers. They can also be inflated. If you include them, give context; never present them as a stand-alone measure of worth.

Prefer field-normalized indicators

Field-normalized indicators — such as the Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) or the NIH iCite Relative Citation Ratio (RCR) — account for differences in citation rates between fields and over time, so they are more comparable than raw counts. They are still imperfect and should be read with context, never as the only signal.

What DORA and the Leiden Manifesto recommend

• DORA — do not use journal-based metrics (like the JIF) to assess individual contributions; assess research on its own merits.
• The Leiden Manifesto — use quantitative indicators to support, not replace, expert judgement; account for field differences; keep data and methods transparent; and avoid misplaced concreteness.

Practical advice for your CV

• Lead with the work itself — what you did and why it matters — not with numbers.
• If you include metrics, prefer field-normalized indicators and give context (field, time window, percentile).
• Consider a short narrative description of your key contributions instead of, or alongside, numbers.
• Never cite the Journal Impact Factor of the journals your papers appeared in.

Responsible metrics, by default

SigmaCV is built around this stance: metrics are off by default and opt-in, it prefers field-normalized indicators over raw counts, and it never shows a journal Impact Factor — aligned with DORA. You stay in control of whether any metric appears on your CV at all.

Build a DORA-aligned CV free

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