I've read about universities ranking scientists and candidates based on the journals their stuff is published in and the types of grants they get.
Impact factor.
yes, it matters. I think citation impact also matters.
I wasn't referring to impact factor of journals: I meant that it's applied to
individual scientists.
That said, though, I'm not convinced that impact factors are as straightforward as they seem to be on the surface. For example, publication in a certain journal or lots of citations can be a reflection of trendiness as much as anything else. I can cite one example of groundbreaking work in theoretical physics in a low-circulation journal. Ernest Stu(e)ckelberg did Nobel-worthy work but published in French in relatively obscure journals (eg Helvetica Physica Acta). His choice of venue may have been unfortunate, but it didn't make his work any less meaningful
Val
