# How many scientific papers are mentioned in policy-related documents? An empirical investigation using Web of Science and Altmetric data

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.01822 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.01822/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 6 Dec 2016.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Deep forecasting of translational impact in medical research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.08904/) (2021)
- [Beyond Citations: Measuring Idea-level Knowledge Diffusion from Research to Journalism and Policy-making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.03378/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this short communication, we provide an overview of a relatively newly provided source of altmetrics data which could possibly be used for societal impact measurements in scientometrics. Recently, Altmetric - a start-up providing publication level metrics - started to make data for publications available which have been mentioned in policy-related documents. Using data from Altmetric, we study how many papers indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) are mentioned in policy-related documents. We find that less than 0.5% of the papers published in different subject categories are mentioned at least once in policy-related documents. Based on our results, we recommend that the analysis of (WoS) publications with at least one policy-related mention is repeated regularly (annually). Mentions in policy-related documents should not be used for impact measurement until new policy-related sites are tracked.