Research Assessments

Abstract

How should research be assessed? This is a core question in all institutions supporting research activities. To legitimise their existence, their autonomy, and their power, higher education institutions need tools for assessment that can verify their position as society’s guardians of truth and critical thinking. In addition to regular evaluation of performance on an institutional level, usually performed by nation states, the academic community has institutionalised several forms of research assessment to be deployed on the project, group or individual level. Seen from a gender perspective, research assessment procedures in higher education pose a problem: they relate to, and depart from, institutional power structures that reproduce and reinforce existing gender hierarchies translated as academic worth, meaning that in sum, men’s contributions often end up more visible and valued than women’s contributions.