Academic research groups: evaluation of their quality and quality of their evaluation

International Conference on Computer Simulation in Physics and Beyond 2015

物理学;计算机科学

Berche, Bertrand^1,4 ; Holovatch, Yuri^2,4 ; Kenna, Ralph^3,4 ; Mryglod, Olesya^2,4

Université de Lorraine, Statistical Physics Group, IJL, UMR CNRS 7198, Campus de Nancy, B.P. 70239, Vandreuvre lés Nancy Cedex

54506, France^1

Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 1 Svientsitskii Str., Lviv

79011, Ukraine^2

Applied Mathematics Research Centre, Coventry University, CV1 5FB, United Kingdom^3

Doctoral College for the Statistical Physics of Complex Systems, Leipzig-Lorraine-Lviv-Coventry (L4)., United Kingdom^4

关键词: Academic careers;    Academic research;    Governmental agency;    Policy makers;    Research funding;    Research quality;    Scientific community;    Simple metrics;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/681/1/012004/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/681/1/012004

学科分类：计算机科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

In recent years, evaluation of the quality of academic research has become an increasingly important and influential business. It determines, often to a large extent, the amount of research funding flowing into universities and similar institutes from governmental agencies and it impacts upon academic careers. Policy makers are becoming increasingly reliant upon, and influenced by, the outcomes of such evaluations. In response, university managers are increasingly attracted to simple metrics as guides to the dynamics of the positions of their various institutions in league tables. However, these league tables are invariably drawn up by inexpert bodies such as newspapers and magazines, using arbitrary measures and criteria. Terms such as "critical mass" and "h-index" are bandied about without understanding of what they actually mean. Rather than accepting the rise and fall of universities, departments and individuals on a turbulent sea of arbitrary measures, we suggest it is incumbent upon the scientific community itself to clarify their nature. Here we report on recent attempts to do that by properly defining critical mass and showing how group size influences research quality. We also examine currently predominant metrics and show that these fail as reliable indicators of group research quality.