Canada's astronomy performance based on bibliometrics

Using bibliometrics this white paper shows:

• The observing facilities that Canada supports financially are amongst the highest performing, both in productivity and impact, of facilities world-wide.
• For most observing facilities, Canadian any author papers have higher impact per paper than that of the full bibliography of the facility.
• However, Canadian first author papers on most facilities have a lower impact per paper than that of the full bibliography of a facility
• Almost 80% of Canadian first author papers based on telescope data are authored by either students or PDFs.
• Using ADS numbers, for the period 2014 – 2017 Canada ranks second in the world in mean impact per paper when considering any author papers.
• However, when considering only Canadian first author papers, Canada ranks only 8th in the same metric.
• The number of Canadian first author papers has declined slightly since 2010 (based on ADS numbers), while the number has increased for most of our ‘competitors’.
• Based upon the publication history of Canadian faculty members, a person’s first author paper production peaks during their postdoc years and then declines once they have a faculty position.