The dichotomy between research that aims at tackling specific societal challenges and blue sky research is not as wide as expected. A new Danish study on the impact of research funded by the last two framework programmes reveals that there may be no contradiction between research being challenge-oriented and being academically influential. This gives food for thought to steer future research policy. Read more […]
Never thought of being gender biased when performing evaluations? Scientists often consider themselves to be rational and objective. But a growing batch of literature suggests the opposite. Particularly, when it comes to evaluating research. Male and female scientists alike tend to implicitly undervalue women’s scientific accomplishments. A 2012 EU-report, identifies unconscious bias in assessing excellence as one of the major problems women face in science. Read more […]
The internet is transforming the way researchers communicate. And the pace of change is increasing. A number of issues have arisen under increasing public scrutiny. These include peer-review transparency, open data, evaluation of research impact—both based on articles and authors—as well as research reproducibility. At the same time, demand for real time Open Access (OA) to the latest scientific and medical results has rocketed. Read more […]
Dear Editor, I was fascinated to read Janna Degener’s interesting piece on university rankings. Rankings are an endlessly interesting subject. It is important to understand why they exist. At a superficial level, they are designed to sell copies of magazines that publish them, or advertising in these publications, or are a commercial undertaking in some other way. More fundamentally, they owe their existence to competition and market forces. World rankings illustrate this point. Read more […]
There are a number of worldwide university rankings, which are often used as a guide for future education and career progression. These include, among others, the ranking of The Times Higher Education (THE), the QS World University Rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) , also known as the Shanghai Ranking, and the very recently launched U-Multirank, funded by the EU. While some few universities from Western Europe and North America still dominate most of these rankings, there is a trend for the emergence of young universities from newly-industrialised countries such as China and India. Read more […]
Welcome to this special issue of the EuroScientist focusing on the evolving solution for research evaluation! The very existence of scientific career progression hinges on researchers being judged by their peers. Yet, technology is bringing disruption in what was until now a well-oiled peer-review system. The upcoming generation of scientists is likely to be evaluated through an evolved versions of peer-review. Read more […]
With the development of web-based technologies, the new generation of scientists, often referred to as digital natives, will not be evaluated in the same way as previous generation scientists, the digital migrants. This creates a generational divide. It also could create some potential tensions between them. Read more […]
You think that scientists, being quite clever people, would be able to agree on the best way to rank each other’s work. Oh no, not any longer. For this article, the EuroScientist asked Science, Cell and Nature as well as eLife and independent commentators to go on the record with their thoughts on how they see the peer review system, as it stands, and what alternatives should be considered. Read more […]
The current dogma says that the largest part of available research funds must be assigned only to the best scientists. This way, researchers are put in competition with each other . Only a small fraction will be able to obtain the research funds needed to fully develop their own scientific projects. There is a fundamental flaw in this strategy. If some competition is good for public research, it is clear that there is a threshold beyond which competition creates more adverse than positive effects. Read more […]
Mary Phillips has worked as an academic in biomedical sciences at Oxford University, UK, as a funder with the Wellcome Trust, in London, and as director of research planning for University College London. Find out her unique perspective on the limitations of the existing evaluation systems, be it for academic institutions or individual scientists. In this exclusive interview with the EuroScientist, she shares the lessons learned from her various positions related to academia. Read more […]
Academics love to measure things. But how well do they react to being measured? In the UK, that question has been thrown into sharp focus by the Research Excellence Framework, dubbed REF. It is a massive exercise, in which every university in the land has been invited, to prove the quality of the research it undertakes. Read more […]
Science is changing. The widespread reach of the internet means we can access more papers and connect with more researchers than ever before. With the growing adoption of open access policies around the world this trend is only set to increase. As a result, scientists’ ability to collaborate effectively over long distances is now a key challenge for scientists at all stages of their career. Read more […]
European science conversations by the community, for the community
