Applying ‘standard’ publication and citation measures to the social sciences is fast becoming an outmoded practice, yet we have still to develop credible quantitative alternatives to inform research evaluation exercises. This paper reports the outcomes of a comparative pilot study of five...

The reaction of Australian academics to the use of one performance measure, raw publication counts, can be starkly illustrated using data from the Science Citation Index. The mid-1990s saw the first distribution of research funds to Australian universities based on a formula encapsulating a...

Using research funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the classification of the grant that funded the research which led to the publication was contrasted with the use of a common proxy, journal set classification. Frequently, the two measures produce very...

The use of quantitative performance measures to assess the quality of university research is being introduced in Australia and the UK. This paper presents the case for maintaining a balanced approach. It argues that ‘metrics’ have their place, and can make the process more efficient and...