Scientometrics in a changing research landscape

Abstract

Quality assessments permeate the entire scientific enterprise, from funding applications to promotions, prizes and tenure. Their remit can encompass the scientific output of individual scientists, whole departments or institutes, or even entire countries. Peer review has traditionally been the major method used to determine the quality of scientific work, either to arbitrate if the work should be published in a certain journal, or assessing the quality of a scientist’s or institution’s total research/publication output. Since the 1990s, quantitative assessment measures in the form of indicator-supported procedures, such as bibliometrics, have gained increasing importance, especially in budgetary decisions where numbers are more easily compared than peer opinion, and are usually faster to produce. In particular, quantitative procedures can provide important information for quality assessment when it comes to comparing a large number of units, such as several research groups or universities, as individual experts are not capable of handling so much information in a single evaluation procedure. Thus, for example, the new UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) puts more emphasis on bibliometric data and less on peer review than did its predecessor.