Building knowledge infrastructure to support research assessment reforms: Dispatches from the Dutch Recognition and Rewards Festival 2022

In this blog post we reflect on knowledge infrastructures currently emerging to support organizations that are pursuing research assessment reforms, and call on sociologists of science and research evaluation researchers to study and contribute to these unfolding developments.

Alex Rushforth, Marta Sienkiewicz and Sarah de Rijcke • February 23, 2022

A first step in quantifying disagreement across science

Disagreement is ubiquitous in science and maybe even necessary for progress. We leverage recent advances in data to develop a method for quantifying disagreement, revealing the complexity of disagreement across science.

Wout Lamers, Kevin Boyack, Vincent Larivière, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Nees Jan van Eck, Ludo Waltman and Dakota Murray • January 19, 2022

Priority-2030: the New Excellence Initiative from Russia

Dmitry Kochetkov is PhD candidate at CWTS. In this post, he gives an update on Priority-2030, a new excellence initiative in the Russian higher education sector. He also makes some reflections on the role of this experience in the global context of higher education reform.

Dmitry Kochetkov • January 17, 2022

Make maps of research interactive, detailed and open!

Network maps are essential tools in quantitative research studies. In this blog post I argue for interactive maps that show both overview as well as details, are openly accessible, and based on open data. Such maps add value by providing more information, enhanced transparency and interpretability.

Peter Sjögårde • December 06, 2021

Multiple-affiliation researchers as bridgebuilders in research systems

Researchers holding part-time positions at different organisations may contribute to the efficiency of inter-organisational collaborations, but what are the drivers underlying these collaborations? We performed an empirical study to explore the role of geographic and institutional proximities.

Alfredo Yegros, Giovanna Capponi and Koen Frenken • November 09, 2021

Studying Marine Social Science with Mixed Methods

Marine social science studies multifaceted relationships between people and oceans, marine and coastal environments. But it is not yet well integrated into ocean science and policy. This blogpost asks how we can use mixed methods to study the way marine social scientists make their research visible.

Judit Varga • October 11, 2021

The Initiative for Open Abstracts: Celebrating our first anniversary

In this blog post, Ludo Waltman, Bianca Kramer, and David Shotton, co-founders of the Initiative for Open Abstracts, celebrate the first anniversary of the initiative.

Ludo Waltman, Bianca Kramer and David Shotton • October 06, 2021

Tracing science-technology-linkages through patent in-text references

The contribution of science to technological innovation is subject of ongoing debate. In a recent study, our authors investigated how the value of patents depends on the scientific articles referenced and what role aspects such as basicness, novelty, and interdisciplinarity play in this.

Jian Wang and Suzan Verberne • June 24, 2021

Halt the h-index

Using the h-index in research evaluation? Rather not. But why not, actually? Why is using this indicator so problematic? And what are the alternatives anyway? Our authors walk you through an infographic that addresses these questions and aims to highlight some key issues in this discussion.

Sarah de Rijcke, Ludo Waltman and Thed van Leeuwen • May 19, 2021 • 3 comments

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