Yes, we probably all agree that we should evaluate research quality and not quantity. DORA works in that direction, but it avoids specifying what quality means. Perhaps we can even trust each other to identify ‘quality’ and ‘excellence’ just like that.
But consider the following guidelines:
- “The total number of publications or the number of publications per year is not considered to be the only indicator of performance.”
- “Each applicant may list up to 10 scientific publications.”
Both of these are attempts to put DORA into practice. In the former, the number of publications per year cannot be used as the sole indicator (“not the only indicator”). In the latter, we actually remove the possibility to do the former (unless we’re evaluating researchers with fewer than 10 outputs).
I don’t know… I’m not convinced we’re changing much other than how we structure CVs and what we highlight. And thinking about it prospectively (early career researchers; planning what research to focus on), can we even guess which research (output) will have a “big” impact on other researchers or society?
Didier Ruedin 