The Benchmarking feature on the Research Performance Summary Report allows you to compare your organization’s performance against peers or a group of universities, providing valuable context for interpreting key research metrics. Benchmarking highlights differences in performance, helping you understand strengths, areas for improvement, and trends over time.
Why It Matters
Benchmarking helps institutional leaders and research managers answer critical questions, such as:
How does our research performance compare with peer organizations or groups?
Are we improving or declining relative to past years?
Which areas show the greatest impact or need for strategic focus?
Available Benchmarking Options
You can choose to benchmark your Scorecard metrics against:
Another Organization – Compare your performance with that of a selected peer institution.
A Group – Compare against a group of organizations created by you.
Date Range – Compare the latest year against the earliest year of the range selected in the global report filter.
Adding a Benchmark to the Scorecard
To add difference metrics to the Scorecard
Expand the filter labeled 'Compare by'
Open the Comparison Options dropdown
Select Group, Organization, or Report date range
How Benchmarking Scores Are Calculated
Organizations or Groups
When benchmarking is enabled, each metric in the Scorecard shows a difference score, which quantifies how the organization or group compares to the selected benchmark. This difference is calculated as a percentage difference relative to the benchmark.
Or, more simply:
Where:
A = Metric value for the report organization or a group of organizations
B = Metric value for the benchmark (e.g., single peer organization or group of organizations)
What this means:
- A positive percentage means your organization is performing above the benchmark.
- A negative percentage means your organization is performing below the benchmark.
- A difference score of <1% is reported as your value is equal to the benchmark.
Example:
If your organization has 1,000 publications and the benchmark institution has 800:
This means your organization's publication count is 25% higher than the benchmark.
Date Range
If Report Date Range is selected, the difference scores is calculated using the earliest and latest year set in the global report filter. To report the difference between the later year relative to the earlier year, the formula is:
Or more simply:
Where:
L = Value in the later year (e.g., 2024)
E = Value in the earlier year (e.g., 2020)
What this means:
A positive percentage means performance has increased over time.
A negative percentage means performance has declined.
A difference score of <1% is reported as no change.
Example:
If your organization had 600 publications in 2020 and 750 in 2024:
This means your publication output increased by 25% from 2020 to 2024.
How Benchmarking Scores Are Displayed
The difference between the two entities is communicated in three ways: by the statement, the trend line, and the color bar.
- If the difference is <1% the scores are reported as equal. The trend line is a flat arrow and the color indicator is grey.
- If the difference score is negative, the trend line goes downward and the color indicator is red.
- If the difference score is positive, the trend line goes upward and the color indicator is green.