As president and vice-president of the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR), we disagree that Italy has been climbing the international research-impact rankings because Italian scholars are citing each other’s articles more heavily (Nature 572, 578–579; 2019).

Scientific productivity in Italy has risen in the past decade, possibly stimulated by the introduction of performance-related university funding. Such systems tend to increase a country’s publications in the short term, as well as to boost the number of citations per paper when normalized for each field. The use of metrics can itself have positive effects on scientific output (see D. Checchi et al. High. Educ. Q. 73, 45–69; 2019).

ANVUR recognizes the importance of correcting gaming behaviour, including self-citation. In our most recent evaluation exercise (in 2011–14), papers in which self-citation exceeded a given threshold were downgraded. We intend to seek evidence of gaming behaviour at the individual and article level, and clamp down on it in future evaluations if necessary.

The Italian research system has responded to public demand for more transparency and accountability. Citation doping alone cannot explain the concomitant rise in publications and citations (see also P. D’Antuono and M. Ciavarella Nature 574, 333; 2019). The rise should in fact be viewed with some pride by the Italian scientific community.