Following the recent survey of all Italian academics with a crude estimate of their h-index, we now publish the list of all those academics who are officially affiliated to one major scientific sector (the so called ''settore disciplinare'', or SSD) covering Pharmacology and Toxicology: BIO/14. This analysis will be the first of a series dealing with the most important disciplinary sectors of Italian academia.The present online publication seems rather timely, since it coincides with a request, made by the Consiglio Universitario Nazionale (CUN) to scientific societies (e.g., Società Italiana di Farmacologia, SIF), to provide the anonymous h-index of their members.
CUN is the council of Italian universities that officially advices the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR). Hence, this initiative might open the way to the use of the h-index for defining, in each disciplinary sector, a bibliometric 'quality indicator' for a range of potential applications. For example, it could provide reference metrics for the selection of both the applicants to academic posts and the committee members who will evaluate these applicants.
Perhaps our recent TIS report comparing the mean h-index of TIS among different scientific areas might have contributed to this new quantitative twist in evaluating Italian academics. In Table 1, academics are listed in the descending order of their h-index calculated mainly with Google Scholar, after removing homonyms. The list is cut to the value of 16, which corresponds to the median in the h-index distribution for the over 600 scientists affiliated to BIO/14. Of note, these values are estimates and can be incorrect for a number of reasons. Indeed, the list has been partially amended thanks to the feed-back received by individual authors following its appearence, as a work-in progress draft, in the website SIF Informa. We are committed to constantly amend and update the data presented here, to provide a 'live' reference to the scientific community. This report is intended to stimulate further feed-back and co-operation in order to produce an accurate profile of pharmacologists and toxicologists in Italy.
Why is it important?It presents the first detailed analysis of an Italian scientific sector with refined h-index estimates of its affiliated scientists
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Universal Declaration 
