An expert group on the assessment of university-based research was established by the European Commission in July 2008. The main objective was to "identify parameters to be observed in research assessment and to analyse major assessment and ranking systems to establish a more valid comparative methodological approach".
Now the group has delivered its final report proposing wide-ranging changes in the world ranking of universities and calling for a more fine-tuned assessment methodology.
The EU Commission asked for the development of a multidimensional methodology to capture more dimensions of academics' work. It also asked the group to identify the types of users of measurements of the quality of university-based research, take stock of the main methodologies in use and identify data requirements for a new multidimensional approach.
The group had 15 distinguished members from 12 EU member states and Australia, and two international organisations. It was headed by Professor Wolfgang Mackiewcz of the Free University of Berlin.
In its report, the group says universities should be funded more for what they do than what they are. Competitive funding "should be based on institutional evaluation systems and on diversified performance indicators".
Although university ranking systems have been widely used since their introduction in 2003, assessment experts have serious reservations about the methodologies used. Besides this, the ranking systems tend to focus on the 100 top ranked institutions.
The EU group wants to make a new and coherent methodology to assess the research produced by European universities. And this should be relevant to the 17,000 higher education institutions around the world.
In a foreword to the report, Commissioner Janez Potocnik, who commissioned the report and who participated in the conference before the report was launched, quotes Einstein: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts".
The group claims that "the absence of appropriate, verifiable and trustworthy data can undermine the usefulness of cross-national comparisons and benchmarking". It then makes reference to a 2007 article by RV Florian in Scientrometics: "Research has found that the results of the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Rankings of World Universities are not replicable, thus calling into question the comparability and methodology used."
The methodology recommended by the group is an assessment based on fit-for-purpose, with combined quantitative indicators and data with qualitative information undertaken at the level of 'knowledge clusters'.
Such knowledge clusters should be based on an administrative unit such as a faculty, department, school, teams, centres, institutes, interdisciplinary issue-driven clusters, the report says. They should allow for aggregation to the institutional level.
The group has developed an outline for a "multi-dimensional research assessment matrix" that links specified users with their defined properties and objectives to specific data, quantifiable and qualitative indicators and specific assessment methods.
Based on this exercise, the group demonstrates the method in several case studies: on research excellence initiatives in Australia and Germany; individual universities in Belgium and Finland; national evaluation agencies and processes in France, Germany, Norway, Ireland, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK; and on global rankings such as Webometrics, the ARWU, THE-QS rankings, as well as performance rankings of scientific papers and the Leiden ranking on bibliometric indicators.
To take the project forward, the report proposes:
* Establishment of a European observatory for assessment of university-based research.
* Investment in developing a shared information infrastructure.
* The launch of a pilot for a multidimensional research assessment matrix.
* Adapting the multidimensional matrix to web-based technology.
* Launching a project of pilot indicators to measure the social and economic impact of research.
* Developing a financial model to cover the full cost of university-based research.
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Friday 23 April 2010
Thursday 22 April 2010
Unemployment and Business
The unemployment rate for the OECD area was broadly stable in February 2010 compared with January. The headline rate fell 0.1 percentage point but this reflected the partial unwinding of effects that led to a temporary increase in Korea's January rate. Month on month, the general picture is of broad stability across all OECD countries, a trend reinforced by the March figures for the United States and Canada, which were unchanged at 9.7% and 8.2%, respectively.
Sunday 11 April 2010
Situation in Thailand
The Thailand of today is not quite the France of 1789 — there is no history of major tensions between rich and poor here, and most of the country is peaceful despite the noisy protests. But more than ever Thailand’s underprivileged are less inclined to quietly accept their station in life as past generations did and are voicing anger about wide disparities in wealth, about shakedowns by the police and what they see as the longstanding condescension in Bangkok toward people who speak provincial dialects, especially from the northeast.
The deference, gentility and graciousness that have helped anchor the social hierarchy in Thailand for centuries are fraying, analysts say, as poorer Thais become more assertive, discarding long-held taboos that discouraged confrontation.
The haves in Thailand have a lot — the country has one of the most inequitable income distributions in Asia, a wider gap between rich and poor than in China, Malaysia, the Philippines or Vietnam, according to a World Bank report.
Four years of political turmoil have brought clearer divisions between wealthy families and their domestic staff, between the patrons of expensive restaurants and the waiters who serve them, between golfing businessmen and the legions of caddies who carry their bags.
“This is a newfound consciousness of a previously neglected part of Thai society,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, one of the country’s leading political scientists and a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s FSI-Humanities Center. “In the past they were upset, but they weren’t cohesive as a force and coherent in their agenda. New technologies have enabled them to unify their disparate voices of dissatisfaction.”
The role of technology in bringing together the protesters has been crucial. The leaders of the protest movement have used community radio stations, mobile-phone messaging and the Internet to forge an identity for lower-income Thais and connect a vast constellation of people in villages and towns.
At times the protests in Bangkok could be described as flash mobs of the disaffected. Protesters, who wear trademark red shirts, have converged on government buildings, banks and military bases across the city guided by text messages.
The deference, gentility and graciousness that have helped anchor the social hierarchy in Thailand for centuries are fraying, analysts say, as poorer Thais become more assertive, discarding long-held taboos that discouraged confrontation.
The haves in Thailand have a lot — the country has one of the most inequitable income distributions in Asia, a wider gap between rich and poor than in China, Malaysia, the Philippines or Vietnam, according to a World Bank report.
Four years of political turmoil have brought clearer divisions between wealthy families and their domestic staff, between the patrons of expensive restaurants and the waiters who serve them, between golfing businessmen and the legions of caddies who carry their bags.
“This is a newfound consciousness of a previously neglected part of Thai society,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, one of the country’s leading political scientists and a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s FSI-Humanities Center. “In the past they were upset, but they weren’t cohesive as a force and coherent in their agenda. New technologies have enabled them to unify their disparate voices of dissatisfaction.”
The role of technology in bringing together the protesters has been crucial. The leaders of the protest movement have used community radio stations, mobile-phone messaging and the Internet to forge an identity for lower-income Thais and connect a vast constellation of people in villages and towns.
At times the protests in Bangkok could be described as flash mobs of the disaffected. Protesters, who wear trademark red shirts, have converged on government buildings, banks and military bases across the city guided by text messages.
Friday 2 April 2010
China trade tensions with US
China’s trade disputes with the U.S. have been “amplified” and in some cases are no worse than those with other countries, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said ahead of a visit to Washington this month by President Hu Jintao.
Kirk declined to single out China as a protectionist nation in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing this weekend. The U.S. and China, with $409 billion in annual trade, have a complex relationship that holds “great promise,” Kirk said.
“Our challenges with China I think get amplified because there’s so much attention focused on China,” Kirk said. “But we have challenges throughout Asia.”
President Barack Obama would like to complete at least one of three pending trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama this year, Kirk said. While he declined to say which accord would come first, Kirk said the administration is making “good progress” on resolving labor and tax issues with Panama.
Bipartisan cooperation will be required on trade issues to keep the U.S. competitive with other countries that are lowering tariffs, Kirk said. He has met with representatives of labor unions and congressional Democrats over the past 14 months to try to defuse the emotions surrounding trade, Kirk said.
Kirk declined to single out China as a protectionist nation in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing this weekend. The U.S. and China, with $409 billion in annual trade, have a complex relationship that holds “great promise,” Kirk said.
“Our challenges with China I think get amplified because there’s so much attention focused on China,” Kirk said. “But we have challenges throughout Asia.”
President Barack Obama would like to complete at least one of three pending trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama this year, Kirk said. While he declined to say which accord would come first, Kirk said the administration is making “good progress” on resolving labor and tax issues with Panama.
Bipartisan cooperation will be required on trade issues to keep the U.S. competitive with other countries that are lowering tariffs, Kirk said. He has met with representatives of labor unions and congressional Democrats over the past 14 months to try to defuse the emotions surrounding trade, Kirk said.
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