About exaly

Scientific research was once driven, above all, by dedication, curiosity, and a commitment to advancing knowledge. Today, however, it is increasingly shaped by financial incentives, from the pursuit of research funding to the economics of academic publishing. In some ways, this has made science resemble a business, but not always the best kind. In ordinary business, people may start with an idea, build something, and then seek investment. In research, many ideas never begin unless funding is already secured. Similarly, while many businesses offer value first and seek profit later, some online publishers, including both predatory and mainstream platforms, appear to prioritise profitability from the start. This project is an attempt to step outside that model. Our aim is to reduce, as far as possible, the influence of money and to return attention to the core purpose of science: the pursuit of knowledge, the open exchange of ideas, and research conducted for its own intellectual and public value.

Scientometrics is a double-edged sword. Citation-based indicators are often used as convenient statistical proxies for research influence, yet they can also be misleading when treated as direct measures of scientific value. At exaly, we provide transparent reports of established scientometric indices, but our purpose is not limited to reproducing conventional metrics. The scientific literature has become too vast, fragmented, and fast-moving to be understood through journals, keywords, or citation counts alone. A few decades ago, following a small number of core journals could give a researcher a reasonable view of progress in a field. Today, scientific knowledge expands across disciplines, publishers, institutions, datasets, methods, and communities at a scale that demands a deeper map of how research actually develops. On the surface, exaly is a scientometric platform. Beneath that surface lies a large-scale graph-theory project. We aim to understand how scientific findings, researchers, institutions, journals, concepts, methods, and discoveries are connected. Citations are only one form of connection: one type of edge among many in a much richer network of scientific activity. Citations are not inherently flawed. The problem lies in reducing them to simple counts and treating those counts as unquestionable evidence of quality, originality, or importance. The real task of scientometrics is not merely to count citations, but to interpret them: to distinguish meaningful influence from noise, structural bias, popularity, repetition, strategic citation, or accidental visibility. In this sense, exaly does not reject metrics; it seeks to place them in context. Our goal is to move beyond dull numerical rankings and towards a more intelligent understanding of science as a connected, evolving body of knowledge.

We are strongly against common metrics that rely solely on the number of citations. We report them because some researchers might be interested in them due to their popularity. Otherwise, we always discourage using them. Citations are good measures for the diffusion of science, but only and only if considering the nature and quality of citations. We are developing new metrics that account for the quality and types of citations rather than treating them equally.