Citation footprint analysis Part I: UK and US chemical engineering academics

A novel method of displaying the publication and citation characteristics o f outputs of researchers using a graphical "footprint" has been developed. Its first application has been to compare the publication and citation char acteristics of a small group of top UK, and US academic chemical engineers. The footprint demonstrates the Relationship Factors of publications in a n umber of related disciplines, as defined by ISI's Journal Citation Reports. The technique has been used to compare both individual academics acid each national group as a whole. The results clearly show that US academic chemi cal engineers are far more interdisciplinary in their output than their UK counterparts. The technique has a number of potential applications, includi ng tracking changes in a discipline over time. tracking individual academic s' output over time, and comparing different disciplines for their interdis ciplinarity.