The Peer Perception Index (PPI) emerged from ongoing discussions among researchers at the NUST School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS). The team was concerned with the limitations of traditional journal-ranking metrics, particularly the Journal Impact Factor, which often fails to reflect genuine scholarly prestige. PPI provides a quality-focused and perception-based measure of journals and conferences, showing where top researchers and institutions choose to publish.
PPI helps researchers and institutions assess the quality and prestige of journals and conferences based on where top researchers publish.
Collaborating Organizations and Funders
To provide a transparent, quality-centric evaluation of academic journals/conferences by focusing on where leading researchers and institutions choose to publish, rather than relying on easily manipulated metrics.
To become a trusted global reference for assessing scholarly prestige and promoting a healthier, more rigorous academic publishing ecosystem.
Researchers at NUST SEECS focused on evaluating journal and conference quality through the Peer Perception Index.
Graduate researchers and associates contributing to the PPI project.
Research Associate
Data Science graduate from FAST-NUCES. His research interests include Generative AI, AI systems development, data engineering, and large-scale web automation. His work focuses on building robust data-driven systems for research and intelligent automation. He has been instrumental in developing codes for PPI in his capacity as Research Associate with the project.
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Currently pursuing MS in Data Science at SEECS, NUST. She completed her BS in Information Technology from Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad. She has worked on the PPI project as Research Assistant developing codes for data analysis and providing meaningful insights.
The Peer Perception Index (PPI) was developed to address the limitations of traditional journal-ranking metrics and to provide a quality-centric view of journal and conference prestige.
The Peer Perception Index (PPI) was developed to address the limitations of traditional journal-ranking metrics and to provide a quality-centric view of journal and conference prestige.
The index reflects collective peer perception by analyzing publication patterns of first authors affiliated with globally ranked universities and organizations.
By focusing on institutional affiliation and publication behavior, PPI helps distinguish prestigious venues from low-quality and borderline predatory journals, including so-called “pink horses.”
PPI provides clarity on journal and conference standing by categorizing venues into Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or None, clearly separating the good, the bad, and the ugly.
PPI analyzes where researchers from top-tier institutions choose to publish, revealing true academic prestige beyond citation counts.
This project is supported by funding from the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) under the Competitive Research Grants for Policy Oriented Research (RASTA) program.
The team gratefully acknowledges this support, which made the development of Peer Perception Index possible.
Evaluating Our Higher Education Experiment: A Rigorous Quality-centric Appraisal of Pakistan's Research Publication Landscape
Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE)
Competitive Research Grants for Policy Oriented Research (RASTA)
RASTA CGP 7.0
