Free h-index Calculator: Find Any Researcher's h-index in Seconds
Look up your h-index, i10-index and m-index for free, with no login and no profile to set up. Search by name or ORCID iD, or paste your citation counts, and we'll show you what your number means.
Where your citations cross the h line
Each bar is one paper, most cited first. Your h-index is the last paper whose bar still reaches the dashed line, where citations equal the paper's rank.
Your h-core papers
| # | Paper | Year | Citations |
|---|
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Explore the PhD by PublicationWhat Is the h-index?
The h-index is a single number that captures both how much a researcher has published and how often that work is cited. Physicist Jorge Hirsch proposed it in 2005: a researcher has an h-index of h when h of their papers have each been cited at least h times.
So an h-index of 10 means you have 10 papers with at least 10 citations each. One blockbuster paper can't push it up on its own, and neither can a long list of papers nobody cites. That balance is why universities, funders and hiring committees use it.
How to Calculate Your h-index by Hand
- List all your papers with the number of times each one has been cited.
- Sort them from most cited to least cited.
- Number them 1, 2, 3 and so on down the list.
- Find the last paper whose citation count is greater than or equal to its number. That number is your h-index.
Example: six papers cited 25, 8, 5, 3, 3 and 1 times
| Rank | Citations | Citations ≥ rank? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 25 | Yes |
| 2 | 8 | Yes |
| 3 | 5 | Yes |
| 4 | 3 | No |
| 5 | 3 | No |
| 6 | 1 | No |
Paper 3 is the last one that clears the bar, so the h-index is 3.
What Is a Good h-index?
There's no single "good" h-index, because it depends on your field and how long you've been publishing. Fields that publish often and cite heavily, like biomedicine, produce much higher numbers than mathematics or the humanities. Compare yourself with people in your own field and at a similar career stage.
In his original paper, Hirsch offered rough benchmarks for physicists: an h-index around 12 might be typical for earning tenure at a major research university, around 18 for a full professorship, and 45 or higher for membership in the US National Academy of Sciences.
That's why the m-index is useful. It divides your h-index by the number of years since your first paper, so early-career researchers aren't compared with people who've been publishing for decades. Hirsch suggested that an m-index around 1 marks a successful scientist, around 2 an outstanding one, and 3 or more a truly exceptional one.
Google Scholar vs. Scopus vs. Web of Science
Your h-index can be different on every site, and that's normal. Each database indexes a different set of publications, so each one finds a different number of citations.
- Google Scholar casts the widest net, including books, theses, preprints and conference papers, so it usually gives the highest number. You only get a profile page if you set one up.
- Scopus and Web of Science index curated lists of journals, so their numbers tend to be lower. Both need an institutional subscription.
- OpenAlex, which powers this calculator, is a free and open index of more than 250 million scholarly works. It usually lands between Google Scholar and the subscription databases.
When you report your h-index on a CV or a grant application, say which database it came from.
The i10-index and m-index
The i10-index is the number of your papers with at least 10 citations each. Google Scholar introduced it, and it's handy early in a career, when your h-index is still small.
The m-index (sometimes called the m-quotient) is your h-index divided by the years since your first publication. It shows how quickly your influence is growing, which makes it fairer for comparing researchers at different stages.
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