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Research Evaluation

8.2 THE LEIDEN MANIFESTO

Not everyone considers the use of metrics beneficial. A title such as
Metrics: a long-term threat to society (Blicharska & Mikusinski, 2012) bears
testimony of this feeling. Indeed, constant monitoring and evaluation may
reduce long-term creativity and may lead to anxiety and in the worst case
early burnout. Surely, such a climate works against mothers who try to
combine a scientific career with caring for their child(ren) (Cameron
et al., 2013). “Misuse of metrics” and “playing the game” are expressions
which are all too familiar for those involved in evaluations based, or par-
tially based, on bibliometric indicators. As a reaction a group of experi-
enced colleagues composed the Leiden Manifesto (Hicks et al., 2015),
named after the conference at which it crystallized. The authors presented
it to the scientific community with the following words:
We offer this distillation of best practice in metrics-based research assessment
so that researchers can hold evaluators to account, and evaluators can hold
their indicators to account.
Irrespective of the metrics chosen, metrics-based evaluation should
adhere to the following principles:
1. Quantitative evaluation should support qualitative, expert assessment.
Metrics properly used support expert assessments; they do not
substitute for judgment. Everyone must retain responsibility for their
assessments.
2. Measure performance against the research missions of the institution,
group or researcher.
Metrics should align with strategic goals, maybe involving stake-
holders, such as university leaders or those responsible for funding, in
the process. Yet, if this is done, metrics cannot say anything about
possible excellence of researchers, but only how their work relates to
these goals.
3. Protect excellence in locally relevant research.
This point relates to the mission of the university which should
include locally relevant issues. This includes that research articles
written in a local language, especially when the main target is a local
audience, must be fully recognized. For this reason a local/regional
database should belong to the set of tools of the trade.
4. Keep data collection and analytical processes open, transparent and
simple.