Should metrics be used to assess research performance? A submission to HEFCE

Conclusion There is no good evidence that any metric measures quality, at least over the short time span that’s needed for them to be useful for giving grants or deciding on promotions).  On the other hand there is good evidence that use of metrics provides a strong incentive to bad behaviour, both by scientists and by journals. They have already started to damage the public perception of science of the honesty of science. The conclusion is obvious. Metrics should not be used to judge academic performance. What should be done? If metrics aren’t used, how should assessment be done? Roderick Floud was president of Universities UK from 2001 to 2003. He’s is nothing if not an establishment person. He said recently: “Each assessment costs somewhere between £20 million and £100 million, yet 75 per cent of the funding goes every time to the top 25 universities. Moreover, the share that each receives has hardly changed during the past 20 years. It is an expensive charade. Far better to distribute all of the money through the research councils in a properly competitive system.” The obvious danger of giving all the money to the Research Councils is that people might be fired solely because they didn’t have big enough grants. That’s serious -it’s already happened at Kings College London, Queen Mary London and at Imperial College. This problem might be ameliorated if there were a maximum on the size of grants and/or on th...
Source: DC's goodscience - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Academia metrics Research Councils Research Funding altmetrics assessment bibliometrics Source Type: blogs