Editorial. Making a difference with research : measuring the impact of mental health research

In a perfect world, all research is of a high quality and has social benefits and impact, improves health-care quality, and achieves positive consumer outcomes (Smith 2001). Traditionally, researchers have been evaluated by their output, including the number of publications, citation rates, the journal impact factor, whether the study was funded by a competitive grant, and the international standing of the research team (Ovseiko et al. 2012). Generally speaking, citation rates and journal impact factors are considered to be objective indicators to judge the quality of research and the research team (Seglen 1997; van Driel et al. 2007). These can be easily calculated (Hunt et al. 2010) and there are several other methods to evaluate journal quality. These include the Evaluation of Research Activity ranking method which uses various indicators such as editorial board membership and transparent reviewing processes (e.g. for nursing journals, see Crookes et al. 2010) and the Excellence in Research Australia journal ranking which provided four ranking tiers for thousands of journals (http://lamp.infosys.deakin.edu.au/era/) (Hunt et al. 2012).