Description of the topic: The aim of this STSM is to investigate who and what can lead to a failure of research assessment by analysing the public discourse, the role of expert knowledge, different representations and political aspects of a research assessment. For the last two decades research assessment has been a rapidly developing field of real-life experiments to measure research performance. The quest to find the best models of assessment bases on a discourse of fair decision making or social justice. Yet, a fair distribution of resources/rewards actually means political restructuring of symbolical hierarchies within academic community. Therefore, any assessment exercise is a political and discursive event and it mobilises different interest groups within and beyond academia with different and conflictual interpretations concerning assessment. Such conflicts might be driven by a diverse set of oppositional categories that vary by national and local contexts: management versusscholarship; local versusglobal; established versusdispossessed; Eastern versusWestern; our academic tribe versustheir clan; democratic versusauthoritative etc. In such a situation, success or failure of a specific research assessment procedure mainly depends on the public discourse and its agents.

The STSM will analyse these discourses starting from the example of a new assessment exercise introduced in Lithuania in 2018. It was sued to the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania even before it started and serves as a source for a lot of theoretical and methodological issues and questions. How credibility of research assessment might be undermined in social and political terms? How the public discourse is constructed by agents of assessment and its subjects? What categories are used to compose idea of just/unfair assessment? How to analyse communicative and political aspects of research assessment? Practical arrangements of the STSM will cover three activities:

• An applicant together with the host will construct a theoretical model and research design for analysing communicative and political features of research assessment;
• The research design will be tested in preparing a short case study about the research assessment in Lithuania;
• The applicant and the host will compose a list of contradictory cases of research evaluation in Europe for further analysis.

Objectives:This STSM aims to advance the understanding of motivations of the researchers both regarding knowledge production and dissemination in the SSH (Task 1 of WG1). This is a basic task which is important for the contextualization of each deliverable in WG1 (and thus also for writing scientific papers); it is also important for Task 3 of WG1. “Observe national regulations/ recommendations/ procedures for research evaluation in the SSH”, as the acceptance of evaluation procedures is an important point in designing national evaluation procedures; and it will finally be a crucial input for the deliverable “Recommendations for better adapted criteria and indicators” (GP4) as acceptance of evaluation procedures might go hand in hand with the acceptance of criteria and indicators used in those procedures.

Special criteria for this STSM: the applicant has knowledge of the organisation of SSH research, at least in his or her country, and has knowledge in discourse analysis and in social theory.

Results: The proposed STSM will contribute to the understanding of the conditions of acceptance of research evaluation procedures and to the recommendations for better adapted criteria and indicators for SSH research. It will also result in co-authored publications and conference presentations.

Practical details:

Working group: WG1 (conceptual frameworks for SSH research evaluation)

Duration and timing: between 2 weeks and 1 month from 1^stof September to 31^stof October 2019

Location: Center for Studies of Social Change, Klaipėda University, S. Nėries g. 5, Klaipėda, Klaipėda, Lithuania

Contact: Liutauras Kraniauskas(liutauras.kraniauskas@gmail.com)

Description of the topic:In the social sciences, data are important sources for research. With the rise of importance of empirical studies and the digitalisation, data is increasingly crucial for research not only in the social sciences but also in the humanities. Also, the data used is getting more and more complex, combining data from different sources, across many countries and using different media and collection modes. Also, data collection is often collaborative work across institutions and countries. Thus, the collection, cleaning, preparation and storage of data becomes a more and more important task also in the SSH. While the collection of data in many STEM fields is seen as part of the research task and secondary use of data includes citation of those involved in data collection, in the SSH, there is no clear standard how to cite data and thus data collection, preparation and storage is not valued as an important scientific work. However, the trend towards open science includes open data and researchers will be more willing to publish their data if data gathering is acknowledged as scientific work and the chances are that their data is re-used and their work properly cited

This STSM at the Data and Research Information Services Unit at FORS, Lausanne, sets out to investigate if and how data is cited in secondary data analysis. We investigate two different sorts of data: first, we investigate how data is cited that is created for secondary analysis, i.e. international comparative surveys. Second, we use the host institution’s data repository to investigate how often data is downloaded and whether and how authors using such data that was made “open” by individual researchers cite these sources.

Objectives: The STSM aims to further the understanding knowledge production and dissemination in the SSH (Task 1 of WG1). It will add to the deliverable “recommendations for better adapted criteria and indicators” due in GP4. Furthermore, it will help fostering data repositories as enhancements of bibliographic repositories and add to Task 2 of WG3, “Analyse characteristics of diverse dissemination channels used in the SSH” as publishing data is one way of disseminating SSH research activities. It will lead to collaborative publications and to guidelines for citation of data sources.

Special criteria for this STSM: the applicant should have basic knowledge in bibliometric analysis and should be familiar with secondary analysis in the social sciences.

Results: The proposed STSM will produce co-authored publications and provide guidelines for citation of data sources.

Practical details:

Working group: WG1 (Conceptual frameworks for SSH research evaluation)

Duration and timing: between 2 weeks and 1 month from August to December 2019.

Location: FORS, Géopolis, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Contact: Michael Ochsner(michael.ochsner@fors.unil.ch), responsible person: Brian Kleiner

Description of the topic:This work reviews and compares how questionable social sciences and humanities (SSH) journals are identified in correspondence with evaluation of the publication channels related to the performance-based research funding. The focus of the STSM will lie in a cross-country comparison. The current lists of SSH journals are analysed and compared from the aspects of predatory and legitimate OA. Communicating about questionable publishing to the research community is investigated and compared. It will be also reviewed, how the yearly number of publications in questionable SSH journals has evolved, and on the other hand, how publishing in legitimate OA journals has evolved. As a result, a description of best practices and challenges of identifying questionable journals and communicating about them will be prepared.

Objectives:

• Investigate and compare how questionable social sciences and humanities journals are identified
• Compare the current lists of social sciences and humanities journals from the aspects of predatory and legitimate OA
• Review and compare how information on questionability is communicated to the experts participating in the evaluation of publication channels in correspondence with performance-based research funding and further to the research community
• Find out how the yearly number of publications in questionable SSH journals has evolved, and on the other hand, how publishing in legitimate OA journals has evolved

Results:

• A description of best practices and challenges of identifying questionable journals and communicating about them

Special criteria for this STSM:The applicant should have knowledge on questionable publishing and access to the data needed

Practical details:

Working group: WG3 (databases and uses of data for understanding SSH research)

Duration: 2 weeks

Location: University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

Contact: Tim Engels (tim.engels@uantwerpen.be), Raf Guns (raf.guns@uantwerpen.be)

Description of the topic: The grantee of this STSM will contribute to the understanding of long term policy impact from European collaborative SSH -social sciences and humanities, projects, such as COST Actions and Societal Challenges projects. It involves an analysis of ~15 of such projects funded by EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020 through documents produced by these projects and telephone interviews with their chairs and/or dissemination coordinators. The main question to be answered is: what are drivers and barriers for European SSH projects in having an impact on policy? The results will be used to organize ENRESSH’s impact on policy in the final year of the action.

Objectives:

• Select European SSH projects and programmes to study.
• Collect contact details of interviews.
• Conduct interviews with chairs and dissemination coordinators of the selected projects.
• Collect documents, for example policy briefs, from selected projects.
• Analyse data using qualitative data analysis tools.
• Formulate recommendations for impact on policy from collaborative European projects.

Expected results:

• A one-pager with recommendations for European SSH projects.
• A working paper for the ENRESSH working paper series, to be developed into a manuscript that can be submitted to an international peer-reviewed journal.

Special criteria for this STSM: Preferably the applicant has experience with qualitative research, including the use of qualitative analysis tools such as Nvivo and Atlas.ti.

Practical details: Working group: WG4 (dissemination)

Duration: Between 2 weeks and 4 weeks, between September and December 2019.

Host institution: Leiden University
Location: Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands Contact: Stefan de Jong. (s.p.l.de.jong@luris.nl).

Description of the topic:ECI find themselves in a situation of a tension between individual and organizational expectations, motivations and limitations. During this STSM, we analyse such tensions and interactions, such as the influence of national evaluation procedures versus the fact that a career will be international (evaluation criteria of other countries apply); changes of rules during qualification period; the relation between evaluation or scientific networks versus career; self-interest/intrinsic motivation versus what is expected; own perceptions of ideal of research versus the ideal of research promoted by rules. The analysis of such tensions will help to understand the situation ECI find themselves in but they also inform how research evaluation procedures could be reformed to reduce such tensions and to better reflect the conditions under which research is conducted.

Objectives: This STSM will contribute to achieving the GAPG2 (to understand the impact of evaluation practices on ECI careers) and GAPG6 (to propose better adapted approaches to evaluating the SSH) foreseen in GP4.

Special criteria for this STSM: the applicant should have knowledge of the different evaluation systems and situations as well as have experience of qualitative research methodology.

Results: The proposed STSM will lead to the production of co-authored publications and presentations. It will also produce an input for the policy brief better adapted approaches to evaluating the SSH as well as for a document with recommendations for ECI regarding evaluation.

Practical details:

Working group: Special Interest Group for Early Career Investigators

Duration and timing: one to two weeks in September 2019

Location:Adam Mickiewicz University, Wieniawskiego 1, 61-712 Poznań, PolandContact:Emanuel Kulczycki (emanuel@ekulczycki.pl)