1. Importance of personal and institutional signatures

Your scientific signature is your digital footprint in the academic world; a single variation in your name or institutional affiliation can reduce the visibility of your publications in databases such as Web of Science or Scopus.

Standardising your author name and writing your academic affiliation correctly not only protects authorship of your research, but also ensures that your citations are counted correctly. In addition, standardising the institutional affiliation is key to identifying the scientific output of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, supports its international positioning and ensures rigour in evaluations and impact indicators (rankings, productivity and citations). Law 14/2011 of 1 June on Science, Technology and Innovation establishes in Article 15 the duty of research staff to use the name of the entities for which they work in accordance with their internal regulations. 

2. Recommendations for standardising author names

Standardising the author signature is essential to avoid variability. Academic databases often make errors when transcribing the signature from the publication to the electronic record. It is common for databases to index names by taking the final part as the main surname and converting the remainder into initials.

Thus, the name Manuel Rodríguez García will be converted into García, MR, making it very difficult to identify the author. In any research work, article or scientific publication in which at least one person belonging to UPM participates, the following signature guidelines must be applied:

1. It is important always to sign in the same way and to avoid varying between using one and two surnames.

2. Particles joining different names should not be included, for example: Juan de Dios.

3. Avoid particles joining names and surnames,  Pedro de la Fuente; however, if they are retained, hyphens must be included: Pedro de-la-Fuente.

3. Recommendations for standardising institutional signatures.

Indicating the workplace correctly makes institutions visible and ensures the accuracy of bibliometric indicators. The following is recommended:

• Always include the institutional affiliation.

• Follow this order: 

  Group/Department ---- Centre/Institute (name and acronym) ---- Main institution ---- Postal address ---- City and Country.

   

• The full name Universidad Politécnica de Madrid must always appear, written in Spanish, without translating it into other languages or using initials or abbreviations in the university's main name. 
• UPM staff on placements or undertaking external collaborations must retain UPM as their main affiliation.

Practical examples of application

Standardised examples of affiliation are shown below according to the origin of the research staff:

• Department and School:

  Departamento de Aeronaves y Vehículos Aeroespaciales, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Aeronáutica y del Espacio, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Pza. Cardenal Cisneros, 3, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, España.

   

• Research institute and ETS:

  Instituto de Energía Solar, E.T.S. de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Avenida Complutense, 30, 28040 Madrid, España.

   

• Research centre:

  Centro de Tecnología Biomédica (CTB), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Campus Montegancedo, 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, España.

   

• Educational innovation or research group:

  Grupo de Innovación Educativa de Didáctica de la Química, E.T.S. de Ingenieros Industriales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2, 28006 Madrid, España.

  Reference standard: These guidelines are based on the recommendations of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) for standardising authors and institutions.