Love DORA, Hate Rankings?
Posted in Research on May 10th, 2021 by steve
“Lizzie Gadd argues that any commitment to responsible research assessment as outlined in DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment) and other such manifestos needs to include action on global university rankings. Highlighting four fundamental critiques of the way in which journal metrics and university rankings have been deployed in higher education, she proposes universities could unite around the principle of being ‘much more than their rank’ …” (more)
[LSE Impact Blog, 10 May]
“Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris TD has today (Friday 7 May) announced €23 million in funding for a programme for post-doctoral researchers to become research leaders. The investment, which is a joint initiative between Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Irish Research Council (IRC), will see some 40 early career researchers, across all disciplines, supported to develop cutting-edge projects through awards of up to €550,000 over a four-year period …” (
“The April 2021 issue of Physics World arrived this morning after the usual month in the post to Ireland. I don’t know why it takes so long. My copy of Private Eye usually takes just a couple of days. Anyway, there is an interview in the latest issue with Steve Hall, the former Managing Director of IOP Publishing who stepped down last month …” (
“Research-intensive university groups representing 77 universities across Europe have signed a joint statement urging the European Union not to restrict access for associated countries, such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Israel, to parts of its multi-billion-euro Horizon Europe research programme, including those covering space and quantum projects …” (
“As markets began to usurp other forms of social regulation throughout the 20th century, metrics became increasingly central to the coordination of new spheres of market-mediated relations. More recently, digital metrics have been operationalized to facilitate the platformization of those domains. Platforms use automated scoring systems to rank content and actors across the markets they mediate …” (
Abstract: Higher education institutions are striving to lower student dropout rates to increase the number of academically qualified persons in the labour market and decrease misguided investment. Researchers generally acknowledge that students who are firmly decided on their studies tend to drop out of their studies less frequently. Building on the extended expectancy-value model via the cost component, this longitudinal study investigates changes in and the impact of students’ motivation on career decidedness and intention to drop out. We analysed data from 351 first-year university students aiming to become teachers across three measurement points, finding that the task effort of students and, to a lesser degree, their interest value was related to career decidedness and, indirectly, to the intention to drop out after the first year in higher education. Moreover, the results revealed that these students’ ability beliefs increased and interest value decreased from the beginning to the end of the first year at higher education. Accordingly, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications taken from these findings.
“A university in the United Kingdom is facing criticism over the responsible use of research metrics, after it used information about scientists’ research income and publication records to identify dozens of jobs that are ‘at risk’. Critics say that using metrics in such a decision is inappropriate because they tend to focus on a small part of an academic’s job. They add that the institution at the centre of the row – the University of Liverpool – used a metric based on citations that is designed to evaluate large groups of researchers, rather than individuals …” (
