The ‘Mesurer les Performances de la Recherche’ Project of the Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS) and Its Further Development

Abstract

The ‘Mesurer les performances de la recherche’ project was funded through project-related subsidies of the Swiss Confederation allocated by the Swiss University Conference. Over the period 2008–2012, the project supported the exploration of new approaches to measure aspects of research that cannot be captured by conventional bibliometry. The project followed the Swiss Way to Quality in the Swiss universities (CRUS 2008), where the Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS, since 1 January 2015 called swissuniversities) is committed to a number of quality principles to guide its quest for university system quality. These principles were formulated on the basis of the CRUS understanding that quality is driven by the following two dimensions: international competition among each university related to specific stakeholder needs and cooperation through complementary specialization and coalition building among Swiss universities. In the long run, these quality principles should contribute to Switzerlands ambition to become a leading place for research, education and knowledge transfer. The project supported accounting for research performance rather than controlling the involved researchers. It also aimed to develop useful tools for the internal quality assessment procedure of Swiss universities according to the guidelines of the Swiss University Conference, devise strategies for Swiss universities and critique academic rankings. The project was successfully finalized by the end of 2012. As of 2013, the ‘Performances de la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales’ programme is up and running and pursues mainly the same goals as the previous project, but with a more specific focus on the humanities and social sciences. This project aims to develop instruments that will foster the visibility of research performance by scholars in the humanities and social sciences in terms of highlighting strengths of different research units located at Swiss universities. It will also strengthen a multiplicity-oriented approach to research evaluation, which aims to support the diversity that characterizes research in the social sciences and humanities.