Mapping of scientific publication excellence has long been a focus of researchers, policymakers and the general public. The proliferation of university ranking methodologies additionally boosted interest in the topic. Consequently, several specific endeavours have been employed to tackle the heterogeneity of universities and subject rankings. As a potential asset to the ongoing efforts, we present insight from the fine-grained evaluation of the university’s scientific publication performance. It is rooted in applying a document-level classification system created by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) in Leiden for Web of Science InCites. Using the meso topics, as a case study we evaluated the scientific publications performance of the University of Belgrade in a 4-year period. By employing the percentiles approach, the analysis enabled us to pinpoint the publication strengths of the observed university. Moreover, it has the potential to in-depth scrutinize the publication performance of individuals and research groups as to further vocalize the need for transparent and impartial research assessment.

Keywords: Scientific publication excellence, research assessment, document-level classification system, fine-grained evaluation.