By the FRELIP Editorial Team
For decades, a journal’s Impact Factor has stood in for the worth of the research it publishes — and often, by extension, the worth of the researcher. But a journal-level average says little about any individual article, and even less about real-world influence. This briefing surveys research impact beyond the Impact Factor: article-level metrics, responsible-metrics principles such as those in the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), and the broader societal and educational impact that citation counts miss entirely. We will consider why narrow metrics can distort incentives for African researchers and how a fuller view of impact better reflects scholarship’s purpose.