Transforming Research Excellence: New Ideas from the Global South

摘要

Robert Tijssen (2003), one of the co-editors of this recent collection, found that references and measures of research excellence in the early 2000s were relatively rare and fairly diffuse. By 2016, S0rensen, Carter and Young found that references in the literature were far more numerous and sharply focussed, commenting: 'emphasis on excellence has bloomed in the past 10-15 years' (2016: 245). The time of 'excellence' has clearly arrived. Research excellence, everyone agrees, is a slippery concept. When he wrestled with the notion in 1960, Robert Merton described it as characterised by an 'instructive ambiguity': does the description refer to a quality of the researcher, or to the researcher's scientific performance? Does it denote an innate capacity or a demonstrable achievement? (Merton 1973: 419-438). We are none the wiser today, especially with regard to how best to measure it. The sign of achievement, and its global instantiation in citation metrics, was once taken for granted as objective and transparent, beyond reasonable dispute as the gold standard of excellence. In many circles, this is no longer the case, and calls for the recognition of local contextual realities and relevance are increasingly heard. But this sets up a conundrum, well expressed in a recent editorial in Nature. Whilst acknowledging that 'excellence depends on context', the Editorial goes on to caution that 'Local definitions can create problems' (Nature 2018: 404)-the specific one they mention is that of young academics who eschew high impact publishing for relevance, only to find their career chances hampered when they apply for jobs elsewhere, but others readily come to mind. In the absence of generally acceptable alternatives, they conclude 'the case for abandoning metrics is not realistic and not desirable' (Nature 2018: 404). In other words, discontent with excellence and its traditional measures abounds, but viable, credible alternatives are thin on the ground. This sets the stage for the contributions in the volume under review.