What is Field-weighted Citation Impact (FWCI), and why can it differ from Citation Benchmarking percentiles?
Last updated on June 30, 2026
Field-Weighted Citation Impact is the ratio of the citations actually received by an output to the citations expected for similar outputs, based on subject field, document type and publication year.
Citation Benchmarking percentiles in Scopus are NOT field-weighted. They are based on raw citation counts for outputs from the same publication year.
Refer to the Snowball Metrics for detailed information.
Field-Weighted Citation Impact is sourced directly from SciVal. The data in SciVal is updated every week. SciVal makes a copy of the Scopus database and then structures it to optimally support its metrics and functionality. This means that SciVal data may be slightly behind Scopus in its data currency.
A Field-Weighted Citation Impact of:
- Exactly 1 means that the output performs just as expected for the global average.
- More than 1 means that the output is more cited than expected according to the global average. For example, 1.48 means 48% more cited than expected.
- Less than 1 means that the output is cited less than expected according to the global average.
Why can FWCI and Citation Benchmarking percentiles show different results?
FWCI and Citation Benchmarking percentiles measure different things. FWCI is field-weighted. It compares an output with similar outputs in the same subject field, document type and publication year. Citation Benchmarking percentiles in Scopus are not field-weighted. They rank an output against outputs from the same publication year based on raw citation counts. SciVal provides both non-field-weighted and field-weighted percentile metrics:
- Outputs in Top Citation Percentiles ranks outputs by raw citation counts for the same publication year.
- Field-Weighted Outputs in Top Citation Percentiles ranks outputs against similar outputs in the same subject field, document type and publication year.
Scopus displays the non-field-weighted percentile in Citation Benchmarking. SciVal displays both the non-field-weighted and field-weighted percentile metrics. This means that a Scopus Citation Benchmarking percentile may differ from a field-weighted percentile shown in SciVal. Both values can be correct, but they are based on different comparisons.
For example, an output may have an FWCI below 1.00 and still appear in a high Scopus Citation Benchmarking percentile. This can happen when the output has a high raw citation count compared with all outputs from the same publication year, but fewer citations than expected compared with similar outputs in its own subject field, document type and publication year.
Citation Benchmarking percentiles are dynamic and may change over time. The percentile is calculated from the citation and benchmarking data available at the time the metric is generated. Values may change when citation counts are updated, citation links are corrected, documents are added or removed from the comparison set, or metric data is refreshed.
For this reason, a historical Scopus screenshot may not match the current Citation Benchmarking percentile shown in Scopus or the current percentile values exported from SciVal. This does not necessarily indicate an error or a change in metric definition.
To compare values accurately, users should make sure they are comparing the same metric and the same data snapshot.
Field-Weighted Citation Impact takes into account differences in citation behaviour across disciplines. It is particularly useful when comparing outputs, researchers, institutions or groups across multiple subject fields:
- Researchers working in fields such as medicine and biochemistry typically produce more output with more co-authors and longer reference lists than researchers working in fields such as mathematics and education; this is a reflection of research culture, and not performance.
- In a denominator comprising multiple disciplines, the effects of outputs in medicine and biochemistry dominate the effects of those in mathematics and education.
- This means that using non-weighted metrics, an institution that is focused on medicine will appear to perform better than an institution that specialises in social sciences.
- The methodology of Field-Weighted Citation Impact accounts for these disciplinary differences.
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