The second of this year’s annual reviews focuses on research assessment. Looking into the the quantitative and qualitative measures that govern and shape research, impact and the management of higher education institutions, this list brings toget…
Category: research evaluation
Multilingualism is integral to accessibility and should be part of European research assessment reform
Developing research systems that promote diverse, multilingual and relevant research for different audiences is a key and often overlooked element in making research accessible. However, biases in traditional research assessment often place researchers…
By ignoring tacit knowledge, we can tell less than we know about research impact.
Impact case studies, such as those produced for the UK’s research excellence framework, often present neat linear impact narratives that reflect the transmission of explicit knowledge from the world of research to the world of practice. Vincent W Mitch…
What role should non-academics have in evaluating the potential impact of new research projects?
Non-academics with extensive experience of particular sectors and industries can provide unique insights into the potential pathways to impact for new research projects. Drawing on a quasi-natural experiment comparing assessment panels with and without…
How models change the world – and what we should do about it
Models that make predictions about the COVID-19 pandemic are complicated by the fact that people change their behaviour in response to these predictions. Lucie White discusses how we can deal with this, based on a recent paper with Philippe van Basshuy…
Can Twitter data help in spotting problems early with publications? What retracted COVID-19 papers can teach us about science in the public sphere
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought science into mainstream public and political debates in novel ways, notably through the widespread use of social media to share and discuss new findings. In this post, Robin Haunschild and Lutz Bornmann discuss their r…
Why indirect contributions matter for science and scientists (II)
In their previous post, Leo Tiokhin, Karthik Panchanathan, Paul Smaldino and Daniel Lakens argued that the predominant focus on scientists’ direct contributions has detrimental effects on collaboration, well-being, and scientific progress more broadly….
Why indirect contributions matter for science and scientists (I)
The contributions of science and research to society are typically made intelligible by measuring direct individual contributions, such as number of journal articles published, journal impact factor, or grant funding acquired. Leo Tiokhin, Karthik Panc…
To reduce inequalities in research evaluation, give researchers a universal basic income for research impact
As the review of REF2021 begins, Mark Reed proposes that rather than allocating impact funding to a small number of high performing institutions, funding should be allocated more broadly to individual researchers. He argues that not only would this lim…
Proving and Improving – Evaluating policy engagement is an opportunity for researchers and institutions to learn as well as demonstrate impact.
The challenges of evaluating the contribution of research to policy making are well documented. In this post Chris Roche, Alana Tomlin, Ujjwal Krishna and Will Pryor outline seven principles for effective monitoring, evaluation and learning for policy …