Research performance evaluation in the German university sector

This first generation of German research evaluation studies should be viewed more as examplifying interesting methodological approaches than as offering definitive and clear-cut conclusions, Nevertheless some important lessons have been learnt from fifteen years of studies on university research performance evaluation.

Abstract

This paper reviews the history of research performance evaluation in the university sector of the Federal Republic of Germany over a fifteen-year period from 1975–88. While the first studies were rankings of entire institutions, recent studies have focused on performance differences between departments and individual researchers of the same discipline. Many different performance measures have been used to rank universities and departments within disciplines. Differences in conceptualization, data collection, counting and weighting procedures, however, make it very difficult to generalize findings across studies. This first generation of German research evaluation studies should, therefore, be viewed more as examplifying interesting methodological approaches than as offering definitive and clear-cut conclusions. Nevertheless some important lessons have been learnt from fifteen years of studies on university research performance evaluation.