ACADEMIC STAFF RESEARCH PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: THE FOREIGN EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The problem of evaluating the university faculty research performance in the European Higher Education Area and in the European Research Area is enlightened in the paper. It is emphasized that under the transition to open science and open access and increasing digitalization, that has emerged in the higher education system due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the problem of academic staff research performance evaluation and their career attractiveness needs to be reconsidered. The article analyses the key principles of evaluating researchers and their professional development; they are enlightened in the basic regulations of the European Commission, European University Association and European Research Area, and in the Hong Kong Principles as a part of the Open Science and Open Access Initiative. The issue of using almetrics in evaluating research outputs is actualized; it provides the «visibility» of the researcher not only for the scientific or educational community, but also for society as a whole. This expands the scope of usual indicators of research performance and provides a comprehensive and more objective measurement of researchers’ excellence. The structure of research performance evaluation is given; it should be based on an integrated approach, taking into account the peer-review, quantitative and qualitative measurements, and include all the components of university staff research activity, i.e. the scientific creativity potential and its research outputs, research supervision, young scientists’ mentoring, national and international cooperation, performing administrative duties, research dissemination, and mobility.

Keywords

• alternative metrics; career attractiveness; evaluation of researchers; research competencies; peer-review; principles of evaluation