About Us

This story begins with a painful moment: the sudden loss of my mother to pancreatic cancer. I kept wondering if there was a way to save her.

Talking to researchers, I discovered a frustrating truth: much of the research we rely on is shaped by budgets, prestige, and politics. Scientists spend valuable time searching for relevant studies, unsure if they truly reflect the best science.

That was my eureka moment. I realized there was a need for objective and meaningful metrics. And so, the YCR-index was born.

The algorithm behind YCR-index is fully documented and built on open data from OpenAlex. It combines three measurable factors (publication year, raw citation count, and a relative citation rate adapted from the open-data version of RCR) to compare papers within the same field and time frame. This approach aims to reduce field-size bias and improve transparency without relying on subscription databases or proprietary scores.

Using our free, open-source Chrome extension and related tools, researchers can view these scores directly in Google Scholar, PubMed, or on any page that displays a DOI. This helps them quickly assess whether a paper outperforms, matches, or trails its peers.

We are continuing to refine the relative measure through carefully planned algorithm modifications. We have already begun adding complementary metrics such as PaperRank, and more metric and algorithm enhancements are planned for the future.

Team member profiles and additional credits will be posted here soon, once final reviews are complete.

David Banino
Founder, YCR-index