I’m preparing an EB-1 petition as a researcher and I’m stuck on one point. I’m wondering which EB-1 criteria USCIS specifically counts regarding publications — do I need to explain in the petition what the h-index, Google Scholar, and Scopus are? Or is it enough to just state the number without explanations, like “h-index X according to Google Scholar”? I’ve seen some people list only the number of articles and citations without the index, but I want to include the h-index and don’t know whether I should spell it out for the officer.
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Bottom line: the officer is a lawyer, not a scientist — the h-index means nothing to him without an explanation. Write in one line what it is and where the number comes from, plus a screenshot from Google Scholar — that’s more reliable than just throwing out bare numbers.
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Make sure you spell it out — the officer isn’t a scientist; there’s a forum thread that breaks down ‘scholar’ and the requirements.
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In my experience, it’s also important to show independent citations separately. Of the nominal 200 citations, truly independent ones may be 130–150, and the officer won’t calculate that themselves — include a table with self-citations and co-authors excluded. The h-index looks weaker without this breakdown, although that also depends on the field…
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