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rules, and mountains of futile paperwork. We hope that our book does
not contribute to such barriers for creative science.
Yet, the research environment also changes because of external factors.
Digitization has led to new data and corresponding opportunities for
visualizations, data mining, and altmetric evaluation methods. In this way
research evaluation has moved from a data poor to a data rich enterprise,
increasing the opportunities for commercialization. All these develop-
ments are influencing scientists, university administrators and indirectly
society at large and politicians. We note, moreover, that for science policy
purposes research evaluation is not what really matters. For policy devel-
opment it is better to focus on the mechanism than on the outcome.
We like to end this chapter with a remark on the social aspects of the
work environment. Any kind of work-related evaluation, be it in a factory
or at a university, tends to stress work-related performance. Evaluations
rarely take the work-life balance into account. Yet, it is well-known that
recreational pursuits such as sports, music, art or just relaxing with one’s
family are positively correlated with creativity and quality of life
(Overbaugh, 2011). Too much emphasis on quantitative measures of sheer
productivity instead of quality and originality of work, places an unfair
burden on scientists and their families (Harvey, 2015). These points are
not the purpose of this book, but they, nevertheless, deserve to be
mentioned.