Abstract
Contemporary academic evaluation regimes, aiming to quantify and rank research quality, scholars and institutions, mostly rely on criteria such as metrics and citation scores. However, researchers started questioning recently whether these are the most appropriate instruments to evaluate academic excellence, especially in social sciences and humanities. Predominant evaluation criteria, such as peer review and citation index reflect only a limited scope of the research quality and relevance, as many dimensions cannot be seized through these traditional indicators, such as societal impact. In response to this criticism, a number of innovative research quality evaluation methods emerged in recent years, aiming to better reflect the complexity of often transdisciplinary research in social sciences and humanities. In this article, we attempt to review some of the most innovative strategies for assessing research quality, especially concerning transdisciplinary research in social sciences and humanities, as well as the societal impact and 'productive interactions'. We conclude that while other innovative strategies are still in the pioneer phase, requiring more research and practical implementation, measuring societal impact emerged as a reliable, relevant, comprehensive and applicable strategy for evaluating research quality in social sciences and humanities.
Highlights
Modern scholarship has long been debating about the importance of research evaluation for ensuring scientific rigor, significance, and impact in both natural and social sciences
Researchers started questioning recently whether these are the most appropriate instruments to evaluate academic excellence, especially in social sciences and humanities. Predominant evaluation criteria, such as peer review and citation index reflect only a limited scope of the research quality and relevance, as many dimensions cannot be seized through these traditional indicators, such as societal impact. In response to this criticism, a number of innovative research quality evaluation methods emerged in recent years, aiming to better reflect the complexity of often transdisciplinary research in social sciences and humanities
Most of the research evaluation relied on measures of academic output, such as peer review and bibliometric, as tools for assessing research quality and its scientific merit [15, 16]
Summary
Modern scholarship has long been debating about the importance of research evaluation for ensuring scientific rigor, significance, and impact in both natural and social sciences. In the era of globalization, determining standards and criteria for evaluating research became one of the major preoccupations of the academic community and that of ministries, scientific committees, nonprofit agencies, foundations and other stakeholders engaged in the research investment cycle. Sets of criteria, standards and evaluation methods have been established in order to measure performance in academic work. The most important ones, traditionally, have been the prestige of the publication venue, namely the journal-level measures such as the impact factor and the metrics such as citation index. This enabled the academic community to distinguish clearly between good and bad research work, to establish merit-based practices and shape review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes within the institutions
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