Is Inequality Among Universities Increasing? Gini Coefficients and the Elusive Rise of Elite Universities

One of the unintended consequences of the New Public Management (NPM) in universities is often feared to be a division between elite institutions focused on research and large institutions with teaching missions. However, institutional isomorphisms provide counter-incentives. For example, university rankings focus on certain output parameters such as publications, but not on others (e.g., patents). In this study, we apply Gini coefficients to university rankings in order to assess whether universities are becoming more unequal, at the level of both the world and individual nations. Our results do not support the thesis that universities are becoming more unequal. If anything, we predominantly find homogenization, both at the level of the global comparisons and nationally. In a more restricted dataset (using only publications in the natural and life sciences), we find increasing inequality for those countries, which used NPM during the 1990s, but not during the 2000s. Our findings suggest that increased output steering from the policy side leads to a global conformation to performance standards

Starka forskare och starka forskningsmiljöer vid nya universitet och högskolor

I rapporten presenteras en kartläggning av starka forskare och starka forskningsmiljöer vid nya universitet och mindre högskolor. Rapporten består av två delstudier. I den första delstudien jämförs forskning vid yngre och äldre svenska lärosäten med forskning vid yngre och äldre brittiska lärosäten. Eftersom forskningsaktiviteten vi yngre universitet och högskolor är under uppbyggnad är en jämförelse enbart med äldre svenska universitet missvisande och det är därför motiverat att undersöka hur yngre och äldre svenska lärosäten presterat när de jämförs med yngre och äldre brittiska lärosäten. Jämförelsen med de brittiska lärosätena har gjorts med avseende på citeringsgenomslag, produktionsvolym, specialiseringsgrad och internationella samarbeten. I rapportens andra delstudie jämförs ett urval av yngre svenska universitet och högskolor med avseende på fördelningen av starka forskare och starka forskargrupperingar

Notiser & anmälningar : National Science Indicators : Allt mindre nyskapande forskning vid svenska universitet

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv</p

Notiser &amp; anmälningar : National Science Indicators : Allt mindre nyskapande forskning vid svenska universitet

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv</p

The information value of early career productivity in mathematics : a ROC analysis of prediction errors in bibliometricly informed decision making

The aim of this study was to provide a framework to evaluate bibliometric indicators as decision support tools from a decision making perspective and to examine the information value of early career publication rate as a predictor of future productivity. We used ROC analysis to evaluate a bibliometric indicator as a tool for binary decision making. The dataset consisted of 451 early career researchers in the mathematical sub-field of number theory. We investigated the effect of three different definitions of top performance groups—top 10, top 25, and top 50 %; the consequences of using different thresholds in the prediction models; and the added prediction value of information on early career research collaboration and publications in prestige journals. We conclude that early career performance productivity has an information value in all tested decision scenarios, but future performance is more predictable if the definition of a high performance group is more exclusive. Estimated optimal decision thresholds using the Youden index indicated that the top 10 % decision scenario should use 7 articles, the top 25 % scenario should use 7 articles, and the top 50 % should use 5 articles to minimize prediction errors. A comparative analysis between the decision thresholds provided by the Youden index which take consequences into consideration and a method commonly used in evaluative bibliometrics which do not take consequences into consideration when determining decision thresholds, indicated that differences are trivial for the top 25 and the 50 % groups. However, a statistically significant difference between the methods was found for the top 10 % group. Information on early career collaboration and publication strategies did not add any prediction value to the bibliometric indicator publication rate in any of the models. The key contributions of this research is the focus on consequences in terms of prediction errors and the notion of transforming uncertainty into risk when we are choosing decision thresholds in bibliometricly informed decision making. The significance of our results are discussed from the point of view of a science policy and management