Why coverage matters: Invisibility of agricultural research from the Global South may be an obstacle to development

To support development and sustainability in the Global South, contextual and locally appropriate knowledge on agriculture needs to be visible and accessible. Improving coverage in global open scholarly infrastructures can play a crucial role in increasing visibility.

Ismael Rafols, Madhan Muthu, Josep-Manuel Rodríguez-Gairín, Marta Somoza-Fernández and Cristóbal Urbano • July 21, 2023

Why are diversity and inclusion important for Global Science?

CWTS is starting a new UNESCO Chair on Diversity and Inclusion in Global Science. In this blog post we outline why this topic matters and how our team aims to contribute to UNESCO's agenda of making science a positive force for development.

Ismael Rafols, Ingeborg Meijer and Rodrigo Costas • November 10, 2022 • 1 comment

Do research priorities for mental health actually reflect the goal of fostering well-being?

Do mental health research priorities reflect societal needs? This post explores the landscape of mental health research and introduces an interactive visualization that allows to explore research portfolios of specific countries, funders and organisations.

Wouter van de Klippe, Alfredo Yegros, Tim Willemse and Ismael Rafols • March 30, 2022

Knowledge integration for societal challenges: from interdisciplinarity to research portfolio analysis

For research to address societal challenges, indicators of average degree of ‘interdisciplinarity’ are not relevant. Instead, we propose a portfolio approach to analyze knowledge integration as a systemic process; in particular, the directions, diversity and synergies of research trajectories.

Ismael Rafols • December 01, 2020

On 'measuring' interdisciplinarity: from indicators to indicating

Indicators of interdisciplinarity are increasingly requested. Yet efforts to make aggregate indicators have failed due to the diversity and ambiguity of understandings of interdisciplinarity. Instead of universal indicators, we propose a contextualised process of indicating interdisciplinarity.

Ismael Rafols • November 30, 2020 • 3 comments

Who benefits from science? A comment on Barry Bozeman’s ‘Public Value Science’

In a new article for Issues in S&T Barry Bozeman argues that current science policies benefit the rich more than the poor, thus reinforcing social inequalities. This blog post discusses his argument in the light of related views on how science can contribute to wider social well-being.

Ismael Rafols • September 22, 2020

Consensus and dissensus in ‘mappings’ of science for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

A variety of ‘mappings’ of research on SDGs are being developed. A recent study shows that there are stark disagreements across some of these bibliometric ‘mappings’, raising concerns about their robustness. I argue here that this is due to different interpretations of the science relevant to SDGs.

Ismael Rafols • August 10, 2020

From ‘fund and forget’ to formative and participatory research evaluation

A trend in research evaluation is to include stakeholders as active partners in the evaluation process. In June, CWTS organized an online workshop to explore novel evaluation approaches and to identify possibilities and limitations for co-production in research evaluation.

Rinze Benedictus, Laurens Hessels, Ismael Rafols and Ingeborg Meijer • July 03, 2020

COVID-19: What do funders consider relevant research?

As emergency calls for research funding are made to tackle the COVID-19, some difficult questions come to mind: What types of knowledge are relevant? What types of research should be prioritised?

André Brasil, Soohong Eum, Wouter van de Klippe and Ismael Rafols • April 30, 2020

Ismael Rafols

Blogs