In this blog post, we'll introduce you to the CWTS ECR/PhD Council, shedding light on its significance, objectives, and how it can serve as a crucial resource for early career researchers and PhDs... Show moreIn this blog post, we'll introduce you to the CWTS ECR/PhD Council, shedding light on its significance, objectives, and how it can serve as a crucial resource for early career researchers and PhDs at CWTS. Show less
Chinchilla-Rodriguez, Z.; Costas Comesana, R.; Robinson-Garcia, N.; Larivière, V. 2023
How are rankings used in research evaluation and excellence initiatives? The author presents a literature review using English and Russian sources, as well as gray literature. The Russian case is... Show moreHow are rankings used in research evaluation and excellence initiatives? The author presents a literature review using English and Russian sources, as well as gray literature. The Russian case is highlighted, where rankings have had an essential role in research evaluation and policy until recently. Show less
We address the question of why global university rankings should not be used for research evaluation. To answer this question, we analyze four groups of literature (academic vs non-academic... Show moreWe address the question of why global university rankings should not be used for research evaluation. To answer this question, we analyze four groups of literature (academic vs non-academic literature, English-language vs Russian-language literature). The analysis shows that most researchers agree that rankings should not be used to evaluate research. However, they are still used for these purposes directly or indirectly, although recent developments give us hope for a change in the situation in the near future. Show less
Confraria, H.; Ciarli, T.; Colonna, A.; Noyons, E. 2023
This page contains an Excel file with search queries to identify documents related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1-16. It also contains a document that explains the methodology used... Show moreThis page contains an Excel file with search queries to identify documents related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1-16. It also contains a document that explains the methodology used to create the queries.This procedure was created for the STRINGS project. It is important to note that in our work to identify SGD-related publications, we do not rely exclusively on search queries. We apply each SDG query to research areas that are obtained from a publication-level clustering algorithm, based on direct backwards and forward citations. We then select research areas related to SDGs, and include all the publications that contribute to that area. The advantage of this procedure is that it allows: i) to include publications that do not use SDG-related language in their abstract or title but which contribute to the research in a cluster/area that has several publications that use SDG-related language; ii) to exclude publications that use terms that are related to SDGs, but do not contribute research that is related to the SDGs.In the STRINGS report, you can find an application to map and characterise publications and patents related to the SDGs, and a country-level analysis of the alignment between research priorities and SDG challenges. Show less
Recent years have seen a rise in awareness around “responsible metrics” and calls for research assessment reforms internationally. Yet within the field of quantitative science studies and in... Show moreRecent years have seen a rise in awareness around “responsible metrics” and calls for research assessment reforms internationally. Yet within the field of quantitative science studies and in research policy contexts, concerns about the limitations of evaluative bibliometrics are almost as old as the tools themselves. Given that many of the concerns articulated in recent reform movements go back decades, why has momentum for change grown only in the past ten years? In this paper, we draw on analytical insights from the sociology of social movements on collective action frames to chart the emergence, development, and expansion of “responsible metrics” as a professional reform movement. Through reviewing important texts that have shaped reform efforts, we argue that hitherto, three framings have underpinned the responsible metrics reform agenda: the metrics scepticism framing, the professional-expert framing, and the reflexivity framing. We suggest that while these three framings have co-existed within the responsible metrics movement to date, the “truce” negotiated between these framings may not last indefinitely, especially as the responsible metrics movement extends into wider research assessment reform movements. Show less
This report presents the results of the Steering Research and Innovation for Global Goals (STRINGS) project – a major global study into the alignment between science, technology and innovation (STI... Show moreThis report presents the results of the Steering Research and Innovation for Global Goals (STRINGS) project – a major global study into the alignment between science, technology and innovation (STI) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It highlights a glaring mismatch between STI and the SDGs; warns that, if this mismatch is not addressed, it will undermine progress on the SDGs; and makes recommendations about how to tackle this imbalance. To help understand and better address the challenges of investing in STI for the SDGs, while embracing the complex relationship between STI and the SDGs, we make use of multiple analytical tools to examine STI-SDG relations for different types of actors, across geographical settings and time horizons. By combining methods from a range of disciplines, we provide complementary mappings, characterizations and understandings of the complex relations between STI and the SDGs. We are then able to build on these mappings and characterizations to illustrate and explain misalignments between STI activities and the SDGs. By combining these analyses, we gained deep insights into the way that particular STI priorities emerge both locally and globally, and how STI can be steered to improve alignment with the SDGs. Our results can help policymakers, research funders, academics, international organizations (INGOs) and aid organizations to make informed decisions about investing in research and innovation that will address the SDGs and ultimately create a positive impact on society. Show less
Increasingly code and algorithms are techniques also applied in textual scholarship, giving rise to new interactions between software engineers and textual scholars. This book argues that much of... Show moreIncreasingly code and algorithms are techniques also applied in textual scholarship, giving rise to new interactions between software engineers and textual scholars. This book argues that much of that process and its effects on textual scholarship are still poorly understood and go unchecked by otherwise normal processes of quality control in scholarship such as peer review. The text provides case studies in which some of these interactions become more apparent, as well as the academic challenges and problems that they introduce. The book demonstrates that the space between code creation and conventional scholarship is one that offers many affordances to textual scholarship that until now remain unexplored. The author argues that it is an intellectual obligation of programmers and textual scholars to examine the properties of digital text and how its existence changes and challenges textual scholarship. Show less
Several initiatives have been taken to promote the open availability of bibliographic metadata of scholarly publications in Crossref. We present an up-to-date overview of the availability of six... Show moreSeveral initiatives have been taken to promote the open availability of bibliographic metadata of scholarly publications in Crossref. We present an up-to-date overview of the availability of six metadata elements in Crossref: reference lists, abstracts, ORCIDs, author affiliations, funding information, and license information. Our analysis shows that the availability of these metadata elements has improved over time, at least for journal articles, the most common publication type in Crossref. However, the analysis also shows that many publishers need to make additional efforts to realize full openness of bibliographic metadata. Show less
