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Measuring research excellence in the EU: Rationale, components, and implications

Publikation: Konferencebidrag › Paper › Forskning › peer review

In 2013, the European Union unveiled its new ‘Composite Indicator for Scientific and Technological Research Excellence’, marking a turning point in how excellence is understood and used in European policy. This is not an isolated occurrence; policy-based interest in excellence is growing all over the world. The heightened focus on excellence and in particular, attempts to define it through quantitative indicators can have important implications for research policy and for the conduct of research itself. This paper examines how the European Union’s understanding of excellence has evolved in recent years, from the presentation of the Lisbon strategy in 2000 to the current Europe 2020 strategy. We find a distinct shift in the understanding of excellence and how success in the knowledge-based economy should be achieved: in the early period, excellence is a fuzzy concept, intrinsically embedded in research and researchers and revealed by peer review. In the later period, excellence is more sharply defined and connected with a particular sort of knowledge, that which produces breakthroughs; the result is that policymakers have turned their focus towards directly steering and controlling what is increasingly considered to be the key element for success in the knowledge-based economy. This change is evidenced by the ‘Composite Indicator for Scientific and Technological Research Excellence’, its rationale and its components, and also provides an entry point into viewing the implications of what happens to excellence when we start to measure it this way.
OriginalsprogDansk
Udgivelsesår2014
Antal sider19
StatusUdgivet - 2014
BegivenhedECPR 8th General Conference - University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Storbritannien
Varighed: 3 sep. 2014 → 6 sep. 2014

Konference

KonferenceECPR 8th General Conference
LokationUniversity of Glasgow
LandStorbritannien
ByGlasgow
Periode03/09/2014 → 06/09/2014

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