Our estimate that 85% of all health research is being avoidably “wasted” [Chalmers & Glasziou, 2009] commonly elicits disbelief. Our own first reaction was similar: “that can’t be right?” Not only did 85% sound too much, but given that $200 billion per year is spent globally on health and medical research, it implied an annual waste of $170 billion. That amount ranks somewhere between the GDPs of Kuwait and Hungary. It seems a problem worthy of serious analysis and attention. But how can we estimate the waste?
Le serveur HAL Thèses a pour objectif de promouvoir l'auto-archivage en ligne des thèses de doctorat et habilitations à diriger des recherches (HDR), qui sont des documents importants pour la communication scientifique entre chercheurs. HAL Thèses est un environnement particulier de HAL et permet donc, comme HAL, de rendre rapidement et gratuitement disponibles des documents scientifiques, mais en se spécialisant aux thèses de doctorat et HDR. Le CCSD n'effectue aucune évaluation scientifique des thèses ou habilitations déposées, puisque c'est le rôle du jury.
IRU publications set out the need for change in response to major issues affecting higher education. The IRU provides a set of considered actions in response for government, public and universities to take up.
When using bibliometrics for research evaluation, the classification of research fields is an issue of great importance. The purpose of this paper is to outline a brief theoretical framework for analysing the role of classification in research evaluation practices. Taking departure in the concept of ‘boundary objects’ we develop a theoretical framework for analyses of how scientific publications negotiate between different social worlds. Moreover, by adding the perspective of large evaluative infrastructures our study seeks to highlight tensions between local practices and global standards. One scientific article was analysed in terms of the different ways it can be classified on author and affiliation levels, on a documental level, and on a bureaucratic level. Publications are boundary objects residing between social worlds: the context of communication and the context of evaluation. Tensions between social worlds become apparent in infrastructures, which aims to serve the demands both of communication and of evaluation.