Halt the avalanche of performance metrics

The leaders of major universities around the world used to maintain a healthy scepticism towards league tables and the metrics that underpin them, but now, officials at institutions that do well in assessments — partly on merit, and partly because they use the English language or have other historical advantages — are becoming beguiled with quantitative measures to rate the performance of academic staff.

Abstract

The increasing dominance of quantitative research assessment threatens the subjective values that really matter in academia, says Colin Macilwain.