Research Assessment in the Humanities: Towards Criteria and Procedures

This book analyses and discusses the recent developments for assessing research quality in the humanities and related fields in the social sciences. Research assessments in the humanities are highly controversial and the evaluation of humanities research is delicate. While citation-based research performance indicators are widely used in the natural and life sciences, quantitative measures for research performance meet strong opposition in the humanities. This volume combines the presentation of state-of-the-art projects on research assessments in the humanities by humanities scholars themselves with a description of the evaluation of humanities research in practice presented by research funders. Bibliometric issues concerning humanities research complete the exhaustive analysis of humanities research assessment. The selection of authors is well-balanced between humanities scholars, research funders, and researchers on higher education. Hence, the edited volume succeeds in painting acomprehensive picture of research evaluation in the humanities. This book is valuable to university and science policy makers, university administrators, research evaluators, bibliometricians as well as humanities scholars who seek expert knowledge in research evaluation in the humanities.

Michael Ochsner

Michael Ochsner finished his doctoral studies at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Zurich in 2012 and received his PhD in 2014. Since 2009, he has been a research associate in the CRUS-organized projects ‘Developing and Testing Research Quality Criteria in the Humanities, with an emphasis on Literature Studies and Art History’ and ‘Application of Bottom-up Criteria in the Assessment of Grant Proposals of Junior Researchers in the Social Sciences and Humanities’. Since 2013, he has also worked at the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS) at the University of Lausanne as a senior researcher in the team ‘international surveys’. He is vice-president of the EvalHum initiative, a European association for research evaluation in the SSH.

Sven E. Hug

Sven E. Hug studied German language and literature as well as psychology at the University of Zurich and worked in various companies as a market research analyst. He is currently working as a project manager at the evaluation office of the University of Zurich and furthermore acts as a research associate in the CRUS-organized project ‘Application of Bottom-up Criteria in the Assessment of Grant Proposals of Junior Researchers in the Social Sciences and Humanities’ at the professorship for social psychology and research on higher education (ETH Zurich).

Hans-Dieter Daniel

Hans-Dieter Daniel holds a dual professorship at ETH Zurich and at the University of Zurich. Since 2001, he has been the director of the evaluation office of the University of Zurich and since 2002, professor for social psychology and research on higher education at ETH Zurich. Dr. Daniel is a psychologist by training. Since 2011, he has been a member of the evaluation committee of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat). His scholarly interests include research on peer review and evaluative bibliometrics. He is a highly cited researcher and co- author of several highly cited journal articles in Essential Science Indicators from Thomson Reuters as well as author of the book Guardians of Science―Fairness and Reliability of Peer Review.