Harvard University · Stanford University

Radar chart profiling Harvard University and Stanford University on output, citations, h-index, impact, reach and breadth — A profile, not a scoreboard: further out means more of that measure, never better. Each axis is scaled to the larger of the two on a log scale.

Output	Harvard University	Stanford University	Larger
Indexed articlesDocuments attributed to the organisation.	639,134	400,287	Harvard University
CitationsCitations those documents have received.	40,004,440	22,359,180	Harvard University
Articles in 2-star journalsOutput placed in the second tier of journals.	206,002	119,392	Harvard University
Articles in 3-star journalsOutput placed in the top tier of journals.	31,494	13,607	Harvard University

Reach	Harvard University	Stanford University	Larger
Peer-reviewed h-indexDepth of the cited record rather than its recent average.	1,327	1,072	Harvard University
h-index (all documents)The same across every indexed document, not only peer-reviewed ones.	1,513	1,245	Harvard University
2-year impactCitations in the last two years per citable item.	4.14	4.43	Stanford University
Score C tierWhere the prestige-weighted citation ratio places it among all organisations of its type. Tier 1 is the top 5%.	1	1	comparable

Spread of the work	Harvard University	Stanford University	Larger
Journals citing the workHow widely the output is picked up, counted in distinct journals.	67,059	63,902	comparable
Disciplines citing the workHow far outside its own subjects the output travels.	9,844	9,633	comparable
Journals published inDistinct journals the organisation has appeared in.	49,704	45,729	Harvard University
Disciplines published inHow broad the research programme is.	17,712	17,058	comparable
Open-access shareShare of articles under an open licence, among those whose licence could be read.	38.7%	40.4%	comparable

How the work is cited over time	Harvard University	Stanford University	Larger
Self-citation rateCitations whose citing paper comes from the same organisation.	6.9%	5.3%	Harvard University
Citation half-lifeYears over which half of an article's citations arrive. A longer half-life means work that keeps being read.	69.50	28.96	Harvard University
Immediacy indexHow quickly citations start arriving after publication.	0.96	1.08	Stanford University

This describes the indexed record of each university and nothing else. The two are very often of different sizes, and most of the measures above grow with size, so a larger figure means a larger organisation before it means anything else. Nothing here ranks one against the other. Full detail: Harvard University · Stanford University · compare a different pair.

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What this page is

This is a description, not a ranking. Two universities are put side by side so the differences between them are visible — how much they publish, how widely it is cited, how far it travels and how it ages. No measure here is presented as better than another, and no overall verdict is drawn, because there is no single question a university comparison answers the way "where should this paper go" is answered for journals.

Reading the chart

The chart summarises six of the measures below. It is a profile, not a scoreboard: further out means more of that thing, never better.

Output — indexed articles attributed to the organisation.
Citations — citations those articles have received.
Depth — the peer-reviewed h-index, which describes the depth of the cited record rather than its recent average.
Impact — the 2-year impact: citations in the last two years per citable item. This is the one axis that does not simply grow with size.
Reach — how many distinct journals cite the work, i.e. how widely it is picked up.
Breadth — how many distinct disciplines the organisation publishes in.

Each axis is scaled to the larger of the two on a log scale. Four of the six grow with size, so a large organisation beside a small one will look larger on most of them — that is the difference in scale being shown, not a difference in quality.

Comparable universities

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Harvard University vs Stanford University