The paper presents general approaches to assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of scientific activities of organizations based on scientometric indicators. An attempt has been made to identify the possibilities of scientific citation indices for analyzing the publication activity of research organizations. The issue of using the impact factor as a tool for comparing and ranking scientific journals is raised. An overview of the methods for forming the impact factor is given, the capabilities of the Russian Science Citation Index are analyzed in relation to calculating the impact factor of scientific journals using the example of publications on economics. The book is addressed to employees of government bodies, researchers, teachers of higher educational institutions, as well as a wide range of readers interested in issues scientometrics and assessment of the effectiveness of scientific activities.