ACUMEN

Academic Careers Understood through Measurement and Norms

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Assessment of the performance of individual researchers is the cornerstone of the scientific and scholarly workforce. It shapes the quality and relevance of knowledge production in science, technology and innovation. Currently, there is a discrepancy between the criteria used in performance assessment and the broader social and economic function of scientific and scholarly research. Additional problems in the current evaluation system are: lack of resources for qualitative evaluation due to increased scale of research; available quantitative measures are often not applicable at the individual level; and there is a lack of recognition for new types of work that researchers need to perform. As a result, the broader social functions of the scientific system are often not included in its quality control mechanisms.

Academic Careers Understood through Measurement and Norms (ACUMEN) addresses these problems by developing criteria and guidelines for Good Evaluation Practices (GEP). These will be based on an ACUMEN Portfolio for individual researchers throughout the sciences, social sciences and humanities combining multiple qualitative and quantitative evidence sources. The ACUMEN Portfolio will be based on: a comparative analysis of current peer review systems in Europe; an in-depth exploration of novel peer review practices; an assessment of the use of scientometric indicators in performance evaluation; the development of new web-based indicators and web-based evaluation tools; and a comparative analysis of the implications of current and emerging evaluation practices for the career development of women researchers. ACUMEN is an integrated, comparative study in which a set of proven methods will be used on the basis of selections from one shared data set: a sample of European Research Area personnel from bibliographic and web databases as well as data harvested from websites, and data gathered through interviews and from citation indexes.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Criteria and guidelines have been developed in a novel method to measure the performance of scientific researchers through an integrated comparative study.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Scientific researchers' performance requires proper assessment in order to allow for quality and relevance of knowledge production in science and innovation. However, there has been a discrepancy between the criteria used in performance assessment and the broader social and economic function of research. Furthermore, there is a lack of quantitative measures that are applicable at the individual level as well as for recognition for new types of work performed.

In an effort to address these problems, the EU-funded project 'Academic careers understood through measurement and norms' (http://research-acumen.eu (ACUMEN)) has created criteria and guidelines for good evaluation practices. Each researcher has a portfolio on their career and contributions. In this way, they can highlight their key achievements. It also has information related to expertise, outputs and influence of each academic and the portfolio contains a narrative that can be used to explain academic merit.

ACUMEN has set its method of evaluation apart from the rest by creating a new perspective, looking at constructive and performance effects and analysing the diversity aspect. It has accomplished this through a comparative analysis of current peer-review systems in Europe as well as novel peer-review practices.

New web-based indicators were developed as were web-based evaluation tools. The work also has implications for evaluation practices for women's career development. Main findings are disseminated through a literature review, a peer review and a survey.

The completed portfolio will be useful in the field of metrics and research evaluation.