How long do top scientists maintain their stardom? An analysis by region, gender and discipline: evidence from Italy

We investigate the question of how long top scientists retain their stardom. We observe the research performance of all Italian professors in the sciences over three consecutive four-year periods, between 2001 and 2012. The top scientists of the first period are identified on the basis of research productivity, and their performance is then tracked through time. The analyses demonstrate that more than a third of the nation's top scientists maintain this status over the three consecutive periods, with higher shares occurring in the life sciences and lower ones in engineering. Compared to males, females are less likely to maintain top status. There are also regional differences, among which top status is less likely to survive in southern Italy than in the north. Finally we investigate the longevity of unproductive professors, and then check whether the career progress of the top and unproductive scientists is aligned with their respective performances. The results appear to have implications for national policies on academic recruitment and advancement

How bibliometrics is affecting SSH

Our society requires an increasing collaboration between SSH and STEM disciplines so to face the growing complexity effectively. However, current methods for research evaluation in Italy separate STM and SSH disciplines and make collaboration difficult. Academic libraries use citation counts, together with usage statistics, to support collection development policies, that is to decide cancellations and renewals of journals and books. A survey in Italian academic libraries I resume in this contribution shows how most of libraries use some kind of quantitative indicator in collection development. This might reinforce the trends and problems of bibliometrics as well as the oligopolistic concentration of the scientific publishing market in the hands of few big players reinforcing the role of the producers of citation databases. Academic libraries allocate most of their funding for big deals acquisitions of journals and for citation databases to support evaluation. Therefore, there is not much budget remaining for other kind of materials, for supporting non-bibliometric disciplines. The bibliometric world is prevailing and increasingly SSH habits are changing to become more similar to STM