Making Lists, Enlisting Scientists: The Bibliometric Indicator, Uncertainty and Emergent Agency

Abstract

The question of how to measure research quality recently gained prominence in the context of Danish research policy, as part of implementing a new model for the allocating of funds to universities. The measurement device took the form of a bibliometric indicator. Analyzing the making of the indicator, the paper engages the literature on social studies of quantification and classification. The analysis proceeds from the inside out, through description of the organizational processes and classificatory disputes through which the indicator was developed. It addresses questions such as: How was the indicator conceptualised? How were notions of scientific knowledge and collaboration inscribed and challenged in the process? The analysis shows a two-sided process in which scientists become engaged in making lists but which is simultaneously a way for research policy to enlist scientists. In conclusion, the analysis offers suggestions for a reorientations of the of study emergent quantification systems.