Policy Citations tracked by Overton.io versus Altmetric.com: Case Study of Finnish Research Organizations in Social Sciences

Abstract

<p>The citing of academic publications in policy documents is an important indication of social impact and there is increasing interest in using policy documents as evidence of scientific impact on policy and the society more broadly. This research compared the policy coverage of 18,996 Scopus publications authored by researchers affiliated to 17 Finnish universities and research institutes. The coverage and overlap of two sources of policy citations, namely Overton and Altmetric.com, were analyzed. The overall results suggest that about 39% of publications in various social science fields from Finland are cited by policy documents tracked by Overton and 9% by those tracked by Altmetric.com. There is on average about 5% overlap between the sources, while 0,6% of the policy document citations are unique to Altme-tric.com and 19% to Overton. Combining results from Overton and Altmetric.com thus provides most coverage.<br></p>