The composite index or composite indicator (abbreviated as c-score)[1][2] is a new numerical indicator that evaluates the quality of a scientist's research publications, regardless of the scientific field in which he/she operates.
[3][4][5] It was initially introduced in 2016 by the Greek-American metascience researcher John Ioannidis at Stanford University and his collaborators, R. Klavans R. and K.
[6] In 2019 an improved version of it[7] was announced in the scientific journal PLOS Biology under the paper title "Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators".
Such meta-research has analyzed and recently published, ultimately identifing the top 2% of the world's most influential scientists, in a unified way across each and every scientific sub-discipline.
[9][10] In general, the parameters that are taken into account and eventually determine the new composite-index (c-score) are the following ones: