title: How many scientific papers are mentioned in policy-related documents? An empirical investigation using Web of Science and Altmetric data.
abstract: In this short communication, we provide an overview of a relatively newly provided source of altmetrics data which could possibly be used for societal impact measurements in scientometrics. Recently, Altmetric-a start-up providing publication level metrics-started to make data for publications available which have been mentioned in policy-related documents. Using data from Altmetric, we study how many papers indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) are mentioned in policy-related documents. We find that less than 0.5% of the papers published in different subject categories are mentioned at least once in policy-related documents. Based on our results, we recommend that the analysis of (WoS) publications with at least one policy-related mention is repeated regularly (annually) in order to check the usefulness of the data. Mentions in policy-related documents should not be used for impact measurement until new policy-related sites are tracked.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Heisenbergstr. 1, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Robin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Haunschild
authors.affiliation: Division for Science and Innovation Studies, Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society, Hofgartenstr. 8, 80539, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Lutz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bornmann
keywords: Altmetrics; Bibliometrics; Policy documents; Policy-related mentions; Societal impact