Aubert Bonn Noémie, Pinxten Wim
Research Group of Healthcare and Ethics, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, Hasselt University, Martelarenlaan 42, 3500, Hasselt, Belgium.
Res Integr Peer Rev. 2021 Jan 14;6(1):1. doi: 10.1186/s41073-020-00104-0.
Success shapes the lives and careers of scientists. But success in science is difficult to define, let alone to translate in indicators that can be used for assessment. In the past few years, several groups expressed their dissatisfaction with the indicators currently used for assessing researchers. But given the lack of agreement on what should constitute success in science, most propositions remain unanswered. This paper aims to complement our understanding of success in science and to document areas of tension and conflict in research assessments.
We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with policy makers, funders, institution leaders, editors or publishers, research integrity office members, research integrity community members, laboratory technicians, researchers, research students, and former-researchers who changed career to inquire on the topics of success, integrity, and responsibilities in science. We used the Flemish biomedical landscape as a baseline to be able to grasp the views of interacting and complementary actors in a system setting.
Given the breadth of our results, we divided our findings in a two-paper series, with the current paper focusing on what defines and determines success in science. Respondents depicted success as a multi-factorial, context-dependent, and mutable construct. Success appeared to be an interaction between characteristics from the researcher (Who), research outputs (What), processes (How), and luck. Interviewees noted that current research assessments overvalued outputs but largely ignored the processes deemed essential for research quality and integrity. Interviewees suggested that science needs a diversity of indicators that are transparent, robust, and valid, and that also allow a balanced and diverse view of success; that assessment of scientists should not blindly depend on metrics but also value human input; and that quality should be valued over quantity.
The objective of research assessments may be to encourage good researchers, to benefit society, or simply to advance science. Yet we show that current assessments fall short on each of these objectives. Open and transparent inter-actor dialogue is needed to understand what research assessments aim for and how they can best achieve their objective.
osf.io/33v3m.
成功塑造了科学家的生活和职业生涯。但科学上的成功难以定义，更不用说转化为可用于评估的指标了。在过去几年里，几个团体表达了他们对目前用于评估研究人员的指标的不满。但鉴于对于科学领域的成功应包含哪些要素缺乏共识，大多数提议仍未得到回应。本文旨在补充我们对科学领域成功的理解，并记录研究评估中存在紧张和冲突的领域。
我们对政策制定者、资助者、机构负责人、编辑或出版商、研究诚信办公室成员、研究诚信社区成员、实验室技术人员、研究人员、研究生以及转行的前研究人员进行了半结构化访谈和焦点小组讨论，以探讨科学领域中成功、诚信和责任的相关话题。我们以佛兰芒生物医学领域为基线，以便能够在系统环境中理解相互作用和互补的参与者的观点。
鉴于我们结果的广度，我们将研究结果分为两篇系列论文，本文聚焦于定义和决定科学领域成功的因素。受访者将成功描述为一个多因素、依赖背景且可变的概念。成功似乎是研究者自身特征（谁）、研究成果（什么）、过程（如何）以及运气之间的相互作用。受访者指出，当前的研究评估高估了成果，但很大程度上忽视了对研究质量和诚信至关重要的过程。受访者建议，科学需要多种透明、可靠且有效的指标，这些指标还应能对成功形成平衡且多样的看法；对科学家的评估不应盲目依赖指标，还应重视人力投入；应重质量而非数量。
研究评估的目标可能是鼓励优秀的研究人员、造福社会或仅仅推动科学发展。然而，我们表明当前的评估在这些目标上均有欠缺。需要开展开放透明的行为者间对话，以了解研究评估的目标以及如何才能最好地实现这些目标。
osf.io/33v3m 。
