Commentary on Thompson DR, Watson R. (2010) Guest Editorial: h-indexes and the performance of professors of nursing in the UK

In Italy, there is controversy in nursing about impact factors. The recent introduction of nursing education in universities (June 2000), specifically in the Faculties of Medicine, requires that scientific output is measured based on the impact factor and h-index, to rate academics’ performance. The current necessity in Italy to reduce the number of academic staff has excessively raised academics’ performance rating targets. In fact, the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research has recently declared that Italian academics have to achieve an h-index of at least 25, if they want to obtain governmental funding and enrol new researchers.