Indicators to be qualitatively reported on 2024

1. Impact trajectories on the basis of knowledge valorisation monitored by VLIZ

For 2024, VLIZ selected three impact trajects that will be documented separately, i.e. Polar research at VLIZ, Marine Regions and the Sea Level Station Monitoring Facility. See the section 'Impact trajectories' of this annual report. 

2. Annual update of the inventory of the marine research landscape in Flanders (Compendium for Coast and Sea).

Each year, a standard method is used to carry out counts that map the marine research landscape in Flanders and Belgium. The current situation was reported in December 2024 in the policy briefing document 'Marine Research in Flanders and Belgium: An Inventory of the Research Landscape', produced as part of the Compendium for Coast and Sea.

The 2024 inventory shows that Belgium now has 144 marine research groups. This is a significant rise compared with the 82 research groups recorded when the mapping exercise began in 2013. These groups publish between 700 and 900 peer-reviewed marine research papers each year, across more than 1,700 journals worldwide. This output is comparable to that of larger marine institutes in neighbouring countries. Around 79% of these publications appear in open access journals, compared with 36%¹ in 2008. Belgian marine research is also strongly international in focus. In 80% of publications, there is international collaboration through co-authorship.

By updating the inventory of the marine research landscape each year, VLIZ aims to inform marine and maritime science policy, the marine research community, and other stakeholders.

Would you like to learn more about the marine research landscape? You can read the full report here.

¹This figure is updated annually as more and more scientific journals retrospectively make their publications available online.

3. Most up-to-date citation indicators, calculated on the basis of citations of peer-reviewed VLIZ publications within a timeframe of 3 years, i.e. N-1, N-2 and N-3 for publications from year N-3. 

These are the Relative Citation Rate (RCR) and the Normalised Mean Citation Rate (NMCR). In addition, the VLIZ publications are also benchmarked by ECOOM against the global standard by means of the Characteristic Scores and Scales (CSS) method.