What is the h-index?
The h-index is a researcher-level metric that tries to measure both the productivity and citation impact of someone's published work in one number. A researcher has an h-index of h if h of their papers have each been cited at least h times, and their remaining papers have no more than h citations each.
For example, an h-index of 12 means at least 12 of your papers have 12+ citations each — publishing a huge number of rarely-cited papers doesn't raise it, and neither does one viral paper on its own. It's designed to reward a consistent, well-cited body of work over time, which is why it's widely used in hiring, tenure, and grant committees alongside — never instead of — actually reading the work.
The i10-index (popularized by Google Scholar) is simpler: it's just the number of papers with at least 10 citations each.
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