Working Group on Assessment of Individual Achievements in Large Collaborations: Report of Commission 11 (C11), Particles and Fields, of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP)

Elementary Particle Physics addresses basic questions about Nature and explores processes at extreme physics conditions, from high energy particle collisions of cosmic rays and at accelerators to low rate and low background processes in underground experiments.

Experiments in this area of science are only possible in a world-wide collaboration of many scientists. The detectors are designed, constructed and operated by large research groups and the scientific results are a common achievement of many scientists. The time required from the first idea about the experiment, design, construction to data taking and data analysis spans typically more than ten or twenty years. During that period, the continuous contributions of all participants – experts in detector hardware, calibration and data analysis alike – are essential for publishing scientific results. Therefore, it is customary in experimental particle physics for publications to be signed by many authors in alphabetic order.

This procedure implies that an assessment of scientific achievements based mainly on publication lists and impact factors is no longer applicable in experimental particle physics. More factors must be included to judge the scientific merits of individual researchers in this field.

For these reasons IUPAP/C11 has set up a working group to address these issues. Members of the working group are listed in the appendix. This group included representatives of large collaborations in Particle Physics. Through these representatives, the collaborations were invited to comment on a draft version of this report.