On the Revision of Scientific Criteria in the Context of the Connection of Science and Practice

Abstract

Introduction. An attempt to understand the need to change the scientometric indicators of legal research was made in this article. Recently, quantitative indicators of publication activity and citations of authors dominate in the assessment of scientific research. There are reasonable doubts about the possibility of measuring scientific creativity only by quantitative indicators. Indicators of scientific activity must systematically explain legal reality. Legal scientometrics needs to be improved so that within the framework of scientometric indicators the practical usefulness of research for law enforcement and the daily routine practice of the existence of legal matter should be taken into account. Theoretical Basis. Methods. The theoretical basis of the article is the works of foreign and domestic researchers and scientists on the problems and features of assessing the effectiveness of scientific research, scientometrics, philosophy and legal theory. While preparing the article, the following scientific research methods were used: measurement, comparison, axiomatic method, analysis, synthesis. Results. The purpose of this article is to identify possible directions of improving the performance indicators of legal science. As a result, measures are proposed to improve the indices of publication activity, as well as measures aimed at attracting wider interest of specialists in the field of jurisprudence and the ordinary population to scientific periodicals, including the allocation in the structure of scientific publications of sections devoted to practice-oriented publications, popular science applications, intended for the general population, etc. In addition, attention is attrected to the problem of publishing practice-oriented publications in international journals, and therefore it is proposed not to give them greater importance compared to domestic publications of the list of leading peer-reviewed journals. Discussion and Conclusion. There are no scientometric indicators that would be able to evaluate without the slightest error the results of a scientist’s activity in all the diversity of connections between his scientific works and reality. Therefore, it is possible to compare the relative effectiveness of scientific developments and areas of activity of scientists based on a combination of not only quantitative, but also qualitative analysis of publication activity.