A decision support system for public research organizations participating in national research assessment exercises

We are witnessing a rapid trend towards the adoption of exercises for evaluation of national research systems, generally based on the peer review approach. They respond to two main needs: stimulating higher efficiency in research activities by public laboratories, and realizing better allocative efficiency in government funding of such institutions. However the peer review approach is typified by several limitations that raise doubts for the achievement of the ultimate objectives. In particular, subjectivity of judgment, which occurs during the step of selecting research outputs to be submitted for the evaluations, risks heavily distorting both the final ratings of the organizations evaluated and the ultimate funding they receive. These distortions become ever more relevant if the evaluation is limited to small samples of the scientific production of the research institutions. The objective of the current study is to propose a quantitative methodology based on bibliometric data that would provide a reliable support for the process of selecting the best products of a laboratory, and thus limit distortions. Benefits are twofold: single research institutions can maximize the probability of receiving a fair evaluation coherent with the real quality of their research. At the same time, broader adoptions of this approach could also provide strong advantages at the macroeconomic level, since it guarantees financial allocations based on the real value of the institutions under evaluation. In this study, the proposed methodology has been applied to the hard science sectors of the Italian university research system for the period 2004-2006

Peer Review Practices

Peer Review (PRev) is among the oldest certification practices in science and was designed to prevent poor research from taking place. There is overall agreement that PRev is the most solid method for the evaluation of scientific quality. Since PRev spans the boundaries of several societal communities, science and policy, research and practice, academia and bureaucracy, public and private, the purposes and meaning of this process may be understood differently across the communities. In Europe, internationally competitive research activities take place in large superstructures as well as in small, insufficiently funded university departments; research can be publicly or privately funded; the purpose may be applied research often with a focus on the needs of regional industry, or purely ‘blue-sky’ research. In current report we focused mainly in on PRev of grant applications, the analysis has been carried out on the basis of PRev related literature analysis (Thomson Reuters, Union Library Catalogues, Google Scholar, and reports of selected research funding organisations)