WHAT IS A COMPETENCE MAP (CM)?
Competence maps (CMs) are a state-of-the-art tool for the analysis and visualization of a research profile or publication portfolio. CMs are capable of characterizing multiple types of R&D actors, such as a person, an institute, or a country. As contrasted with more traditional means (like charts, barplots etc.), CMs are designed to provide multidimensional information on profiles at a glance, including

• in which fields and subfields the actor has contribution to science (competence portfolio),
• how this profile/actor is positioned within the contemporary system of research fields, (position on the global map of science),
• what is the degree of diversity/interdisciplinarity exhibited by the profile (diversification).
• How diverse the portfolio is in terms of the distance of research fields that constitute it (profile pattern).

WHAT EXACTLY (INSTITUTIONAL) COMPETENCE MAPS REPRESENT?
CMs are developed applying a science mapping technique (science overlay maps) developed by a prominent author group in scientometrics (Loet Leydesdorff, Alan L. Porter, Ismael Rafols). The interpretation of maps, for the 27 top institutions, goes as follows:

• Each map captures a publication profile of an institution.
• The basis of each map is the contemporary system of science modelled by a network of research fields (global science map).
• The nodes of the network are "elementary" fields at the lowest level of the organization of science (identified by ISI Subject Categories).
• The ties and structure of the network shows the relatedness of fields in terms of their communication or citation patterns. That is, related fields are connected in the net, the width of the connecting line being proportional to their proximity.
• The publication output of the institution is visualized on the nodes of the network: the size of each field-node is proportional to the institutional output in the particular field (Subject Category).
• The color of the nodes indicates the discipline they belong to: fields with idenctical color jointly constitute a scientific discipline.

WHAT IS A RESOURCE MAP (or country-normalized map)?
What we call "Resource map" is a county-normalized Competence Map. On these graphs, the publication output of an institution is measured as its percentage share from the national stock of publications in each field. That is, the size of the field-nodes on Resource maps shows the institution's national contribution in each field, for the chosen time period. (Hence, node sizes between resource maps are directly comparable.)

WHAT IS AN ACTIVITY MAP (or institution-normalized map)?
What we call "Activity Map" is an institution-normalized Competence Map. On these graphs, the publication output of an institution for each field is measured as the percentage share of that field from the total institutional output. That is, the size of the field-nodes on Activity maps shows the weights of fields within the chosen institution for the chosen time period. (Since, node sizes between Activity Maps are comparable only in terms of proportions.)

WHAT R&D INSTITUTIONS ARE INCLUDED?
Via this service, the Competence Maps and radial plots for the 27 top Hungarian R&D institutions are currently available. By top institutions hereby we mean the most active actors in terms of publication output. A threshold of 100 publications per ten years (2000-2010) were applied to sample the actors of Hungarian science.