Analysis of relation between reviewers' evaluation of proposals and research performance (case study for the Georgian governmental funding organization)

摘要

We investigated research performance of Georgian scientists in 2007-2013, using the official databases of governmental Shota Rustaveli National Scientific Foundation (SRNSF). Bibliometric characteristics: number of publications and citations as well as h-index values of leaders of awarded projects, were obtained from SCOPUS database. Research performance of grantees was analyzed in total as well as for certain SRNSF research directions. We found that about 60% of all leaders of awarded projects have articles registered in the Scopus database by the end of 2013. In different research directions percentage of leaders with articles in Scopus database varied in wide range from 27% to 81%. We showed that there is no correlation between values of reviewer's evaluation scores and bibliometric data of grantees, in the Scopus data base. We conclude that quality of peer-reviewing of projects of Georgian scientists, presented to the SRNSF grant competition, do not enables selection of the most productive project teams. Results of this, analysis, once again points to the necessity of implementation of modern systems of informed peer reviewing. Implementation of such approaches, combining peer-reviewing and bibliometric analysis, is of immense importance for Georgia in the light of Country's current low research performance.