There is an evident need for the most scrupulous assessment possibleof the fruits of research (in the context considered here;​ namely, publications)with a qualitative, hence in-depth analysis of the single products of R&D. But this would require time and competences which not all policy makers have at their disposal. Hopefully, quantitative procedures, apparently objective and easy to apply, would be able to surmount these difficulties.

The diffusion of the quantitative evaluation of research is, that is, the policy makers' adaptive response to the need to increase controls of the efficiency of public spending in since public investment clearly could not be determined at the outset on the basis of the market's spontaneous, decentralised balancing mechanisms. An essential step towards the prevention of the distortions most likely to result from quantitative evaluation is the adoption of quantitative procedures of evaluation of the editorial policies of scientific journals– or, rather, of journals which claim to be scientific. Such procedures must be designed to highlight any distortions caused by the non-optimal editorial policies of journals. With quantitative evaluation, in fact, journals play a crucial role in the formation of public science policies. They thus have to be subjected to specific monitoring to make sure that their conduct fits in with the prerequisites necessary for them to perform their semi-official activity as certifiers of the quality of the products of research. The phenomena of the production, divulgation and fruition of scientific discovery are, ofcourse, so complex that it is necessary to weigh them not with a single indicator, however helpful it may be, but with a constellation of indicators.

We received confirmation of the reliability of the impact factor as an instrument to monitor the quality of research and as a means of evaluating the research itself. This is a reassuring result for the current formulation of public policies and confirms the substantial honesty of the competition mechanisms of the scientific enterprise.