Professional Info

Here you can find information about my scientific activities as Head of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research team belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the Spanish main public research institution. Cybermetrics Lab is working in the development of web indicators for describing and evaluating academic and research related contents and in the quantitative analysis of the processes of scholarly communication through the Internet. We are working on these topics since mid-nineties; starting in 1997 the edition of an all-electronic open access peer-reviewed journal, Cybermetrics, devoted to the publication of webometrics-related papers.

I am the Editor of that journal, the first electronic journal of the CSIC, and also of the Rankings Web of Universities (since 2004), Research Centers (2006), Hospitals (2008), Business Schools (2008) and Repositories (2008), globally known as Webometrics Rankings. The web portal receives more than 5 million of visits from over 200 different countries every year.

I was appointed as a member of the CSIC delegation during the preparation of 5th Framework Program (1998-99) to the Spanish Office of Science and Technology (SOST) in Brussels. In 2002 I was invited as Metcalfe Visitor Fellow to the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia), for cooperation with the Bibliometric & Informetric Research Group (BIRG-UNSW) chaired by Dr Concepción S. Wilson and Dr Mari Davis.

In 2009 I was granted Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universitas Indonesia, a recognition that I shared with other relevant scholars and the former Presidents of India, Indonesia, Philippines or Brunei.

My teaching related activities comprise about 300 workshops, seminars and conferences in more than 100 Universities and professional societies worldwide. My scientific contributions consists of publication of close to 100 papers and books chapters, fifty of them in high impact journals (My h-index is 9 and my Erdos number a nice 4) and participation in more than 60 Congresses and International Conferences, sometimes as keynote speaker or session chair or presenting over 100 communications and posters. Usually I get invited to be member of the scientific committees or panels of these conferences. I was one of the proud organizers of the 11th Conference of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (Madrid, 2007).

I led or contributed to several research projects funded by the Spanish government or by the European Commission through the Framework Programmes of R&D. Especially relevant have been the following ones: OpenAIRE (Repositories of the EU funded research), ACUMEN (Portfolio of scientific indicators for individuals); QEAVIS (eHumanities) or the Network of Excellence MA2VICMR of the Community of Madrid. I have also been member of several committees of experts of the Directorate General for Research (European Commission).

I received the prize IWE 96 by ballot of the Spanish information scientists.

My academic background includes a Licenciatura (MSc) in Biology (Zoology) by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1985), a Master en Información y Documentación (MID) by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and a Diploma de Estudios Avanzados (DEA) by the Universidad de Granada.