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

Expanding the visualization toolbox: Lessons from a Tableau training

Visualizing results is a crucial part of our work at CWTS and essential for interacting with our audience. Consolidating and enriching our knowledge of the Tableau software in a two-day advanced course was one step in that direction. Here, we share some of the experiences and lessons learned.

Jonathan Dudek and Carole de Bordes • January 12, 2022

To Count or not to Count: How to Deal with Funding Acknowledgements

In this blog post we examine academic funding acknowledgements (FAs), and compare our FA database with that of Dimensions. Using a case study, we explore how FAs work, who they are for, and how we can improve FA practices.

Tobias Nosten, Clara Calero-Medina and Jeroen van Honk • December 15, 2021

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

Making my peer review activity more useful

Ludo Waltman studies peer review in a project of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI). In this blog post he discusses how he wants to make his own peer review activity more useful.

Ludo Waltman • October 13, 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