Scientific citation index is a citation database created by eugene garfield (1957) in institute for scientific information, Philadelphia, USA.

SCI scientific citation index and engineering index are three world-famous scientific and technological literature retrieval systems, and they are internationally recognized as the main retrieval tools for scientific statistics and scientific evaluation.

In February, 2020, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology issued "Several Opinions on Standardizing the Use of Relevant Indicators of Papers in Colleges and Universities and Establishing a Correct Evaluation Orientation", which took out practical and practical measures with strong pertinence and operability, divorced from the theory of papers and established a correct evaluation orientation.