Research evaluation per discipline: a peer-review method and its outcomes

This paper describes the method for ex-post peer review evaluation per research discipline used at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and summarizes the outcomes obtained from it. The method produces pertinent advice and triggers responses-at the level of the individual researcher, the research team and the university's research management-for the benefit of research quality, competitivity and visibility. Imposed reflection and contacts during and after the evaluation procedure modify the individual researcher's attitude, improve the research teams' strategies and allow for the extraction of general recommendations that are used as discipline-dependent guidelines in the university's research management. The deep insights gained in the different research disciplines and the substantial data sets on their research, support the university management in its policy decisions and in building policy instruments. Moreover, the results are used as a basis for comparison with other assessments, leading to a better understanding of the possibilities and limitations of different evaluation processes. The peer review method can be applied systematically in a pluri-annual cycle of research discipline evaluations to build up a complete overview, or it can be activated on an ad hoc basis for a particular discipline, based on demands from research teams or on strategic or policy arguments. Research evaluations are conducted with different goals and at different governance levels. Goals set by the university's research management (e.g. internal quality assessment, definition of spearhead research groups, evaluation of the PhD support and training processes, ex-ante and ex-post project evaluations) may be very different from those set by national authorities (e.g. foundation or justification for university funding, mapping of the global research potential, rationalizing the higher education sector). In its regulations 1 the Flemish government imposed a periodic evaluation of all research at all universities of the Flemish community in Belgium. The universities can independently choose or develop their own research evaluation tools, so that these can optimally serve specific goals in research quality. In response to the government requirements, the Research Council of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) installed in 1996 a systematic, two-scale, ex-post evaluation procedure for the research programs and processes within each scientific discipline 2 and for each research team whose research is primarily compliant to the discipline description. The scale of an evaluation influences the choice and the feasibility of evaluation methods, and thus the nature of the results that Research evaluation per discipline: a peer-review method and its can be obtained. The …