The Evaluation of Research and the Evolution of Science Indicators. Current Science, 89(9), 2005, 1510-1517.

Abstract

Research evaluation is based on a representation of the research. Improving the quality of the representations cannot prevent the indicators from being provided with meaning by a receiving discourse different from the research system(s) under study. Since policy decisions affect the systems under study, this configuration generates a tension that has been driving the further development of science indicators since World War II. The article discusses historically the emergence of science indicators and some of the methodological problems involved. More recent developments have been induced by the emergence of the European Union as a supra-national level of policy coordination and by the Internet as a global medium of communication. As science, technology, and innovation policies develop increasingly at various levels and with different objectives, the evaluative discourses can be expected to differentiate with reference to the discourses in which they are enrolled.