Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2012)
SCIENTOMETRIC CRITERIA IN SOCIAL SCIENCES EVALUATION
Abstract
The concern for ensuring research excellence and international competitiveness, together with the increasingly higher demand for greater transparency and accountability of the public funds for scientific research called forth a rapid development of systems, methods and instruments for evaluation of the research output that would help sifting the relevant from the piles of research papers. As R&D funding is directed towards natural and physical sciences, evaluation processes and procedures by scientometric criteria is of greatest concern. When the interest for assessing social sciences research activity increased, it underwent the almost same evaluation processes, despite characteristics that would have called for different and specific criteria, procedures and methods. It is well recognized by different experts in specialized field that socio-economic R&D should answer to the both, the socio- economic needs and opportunities and scientific performance requests. The literature on scientific research evaluation highlights the potential pitfalls associated with applying only scientometric assessment tools, methods and data sources for Social Sciences and Humanities research, ignoring the specificity of this type of research, which is addressed, first of all, to the economy and people. Following a review of the relevant literature on the issue, the present paper surveys the recently elaborated and officially established evaluation criteria for research performed within the SSH fields, in Romania. The author will look into the potential merits, as well as setbacks of the new regulation, underlining challenges and likely impact on the SSH research community, output and performance.
