  There is a worldwide trend towards application of bibliometric research
evaluation, in support of the needs of policy makers and research
administrators. However the assumptions and limitations of bibliometric
measurements suggest a probabilistic rather than the traditional deterministic
approach to the assessment of research performance. The aim of this work is to
propose a multivariate stochastic model for measuring the performance of
individual scientists and to compare the results of its application with those
arising from a deterministic approach. The dataset of the analysis covers the
scientific production indexed in Web of Science for the 2006-2010 period, of
over 900 Italian academic scientists working in two distinct fields of the life
sciences.
