Research evaluation of research-oriented universities in Taiwan from 1993 to 2003

Publications have been regarded as the most significant output indicating the research performance of universities. This paper uses ISI Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database to investigate the academic performance of research-oriented universities in Taiwan, adopting the bibliometric method from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The data cover the time span for 11 years from 1993 to 2003. The performance indicators applied in this study includes the number of papers, the number of citations, the average citations per paper, the number of highly cited papers, the number of hot papers, and the number of top papers. The research performance and the strength of those universities are revealed in this study, and it is found that National Taiwan University leads among these universities though each university still shows strengths in various specific fields.