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The Scientific Excellence Working Group takes a broad approach towards scientific excellence as excellence in all aspects of the scientific endeavor. “Scientific excellence” in this sense not only includes excellence in scientific research, but also excellence in connecting science to society, in teaching and mentoring scientists, in science management, and in science advice to policy makers, to name only a few.
In this working group, we are interested in defining, describing and measuring scientific excellence and its impact on society. Naturally, there is a key focus on how to evaluate scientific activities and to assess the quantitative and qualitative indicators that are currently used for measuring excellence in science. What is more, we are keen on identifying what kind of environment would be most suitable to unleash curiosity and creativity in science, as well as to foster the development of human potential. We also aim to identify new ways to take into account often implicit personal qualities of a person which are nevertheless vital professionally.
Watch the group’s initial founding statement from 2012 here, and their video for the 2020 GYA e-Annual General Meeting here.
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For GYA members and alumni only: connect to the group, collaborate and discuss with other members on the GYA-internal Agora platform here.
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Currently, the group engages in five on-going projects:
The idea arose from the discussion at the 2017 GYA Annual general Meeting within the working group and was preliminary implemented in 2018. We prepared an anonymous relational database of the applicants and the reviewers with the gender, nationality, and discipline attributes. We also designed a short questionnaire to be filled out during the member selection process 2018 and 2019 by the selection committee members. The questionnaires were collected and preliminary analysis was performed. We did few overall preliminary analyses and planning to perform further analysis using the 2018 and 2019 applications. The ultimate aim is to initiate a new project for identifying novel factors which reflect the implicit personal qualities of a person which are yet vital professionally. Read more here.
Koen Vermeir spearheaded and led the first global study of research evaluation practices since 2016. We need this data-informed approach to be able to propose evidence-based recommendations that can improve current evaluation practices and research culture as a whole. In order to have a comparable data set on a global scale, we started the Analysing of Global Views of Institutional Promotion Criteria, focusing on criteria to become a full professor. The first results and a provisional report of this project was presented at the AGM 2018. By now, we have come out with an analysis from 80 documents we obtained across many countries. More documents will be further analysed. We expect to publish a report in the end of 2019.
The group is looking into following up on the 2018 report on “Publishing Models, Assessment, and Open Science“. There are some questions in the problem framework that are worth exploring further.
In the spring of 2018, the working group was invited by the United States National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide expert input on the factors that affect reproducibility and replication of data produced from Science and Engineering research. A survey of GYA members provided input for a presentation in May 2018, which provided a set of comments and recommendations on replicability, based on GYA members’ input and on their personal expertise. A report on “Young Scientist Perspectives on Replicability and Reproducibility in Science and Engineering” is forthcoming.
Koen Vermier was nominated to join the InterAcademy Partnership working group on “Strengthening Research Evaluation: A Global Assessment and Dialogue”.
The Scientific Excellence Working Group continues to work together with the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), ICS, ALLEA, the JRC, and several European Commission Expert Groups to drive change in the perception and measurement of scientific excellence. These collaborations have led to significant results that are impacting policy on a local, regional as well as global level (see the section “outcomes”).
Currently, we are working with IAP on a proposal on “Evaluating Research: Assessment and Improvement of Current Practice” and we are collaborating with the JRC on a document on measuring the impact of science advice.
Ongoing Projects
At the recent CoARA launch, GYA member and co-lead of the Scientific Excellence Working Group, Yensi Flores Bueso (University College Cork, Ireland)was selected to the Steering Committee of CoARA, as a GYA nominee. Read more about CoARA and GYA here.
In November, group members Stefania Mondello and Pradeep Kumar contributed to the second joint event by the GYA with ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, and STM Publishers. The online webinar on ‘IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility) in scholarly peer-review’ examineed ways to expand Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility in scholarly peer review. A report can be found here.
In September, group co-leads Carlo D’Ippoliti and Yensi Flores Bueso as well as group member Pradeep Kumar presented the activities of the Scientific Excellence group at the GYA online event “Young and Global – A perspective on today’s challenges in science” at the Science Summit of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77). In their presentation, they considered how to reinterpret “Scientific Excellence” and how to gear research evaluation towards meeting the goals of a more inclusive, impactful, and open science research culture. Group member Robert Robert Lepenies explained the concept of the Sasha Kagansky Interdisciplinary Grant. Read more about the session and watch the full presentation here.
The InterAcademy Partnership, the GYA, and the International Science Council have created a scoping group on possible initiatives to be conducted together. The scoping group produced a menu of alternatives and are deciding on which activities to start.
Furthermore, the group provided feedback to the European Comission as part of their stakeholder consultation on problems with research evaluation and its conflicts with open science. These contributed to their scoping report, which proposes an alliance within the research community, based on an MoU.
In December, group member Boon Han Lim (Malaysia) presented the interim results of the “A Global View of Institutional Promotion Criteria for Professorship” project at the Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology event on “Measures to improve university faculty evaluation system”.
In November, group members participated in a joint online workshop with ALLEA, on “Research Assessment“. A brief workshop report can be read here.
In October, the report from the 2016 workshop on “Publishing models, assessment, and open science” was published, detailing the results of the workshop, which include a framework of questions and a set of concrete recommendations.
In May, group members Laura Fierce (USA) and Koen Vermeir (France) presented the results of a survey on the “Study on Reproducibility and Replicability in Science and Engineering” in Washington, DC. A report “Young Scientist Perspectives on Replicability and Reproducibility in Science and Engineering” is currently under review.
Participation in “Policy impact of knowledge and knowledge organisations: From understanding impact towards measuring it”, June 2017 (Koen Vermeir)
On a request by ALLEA (ALL European Academies) we gave expert feedback on “The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity – Revised Edition”, published in 2017. For the factsheet by the European Commission on this document, see: Factsheet on the new European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. (Martin Dominik, Robert Lepenies, Koen Vermeir)
In 2016, the Working Group submitted a well-received expert opinion for the Open Science Policy Platform of the European Commission report on “Next-generation metrics: Responsible metrics and evaluation for open science”, published in 2017.
Group member Koen Vermeir participated in “Open access and research evaluation: towards a new ecosystem”, Toulouse, in October.
In May, group members organised a workshop on “Publishing models, assessment, and open science” in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, as a side event to the GYA Annual General Meeting. A brief workshop report was published in October 2018.
In 2015, the group was invited to present the perspective of young scientists around the world on “Rewards, careers, and integrity” in a panel discussion “Research assessment and quality in science: Perspectives from international science and policy organisations” convened by ICSU as part of the “4th World Conference on Research Integrity”, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 31 May to 3 June 2015. As a result of a critical analysis by the WG, concrete recommendations for implementation both in the short and long term were brought forward, embracing the link between integrity, transparency, openness, and reproducibility, while warning about pressures that young scientists are facing, and pointing to the effect of reward systems on brain drain.
Martin Dominik participated in “The Future of Scholarly Scientific Communication”, The Royal Society, London, in April.
Editorial in “Future of Medical Education Journal” on “Science, Education, and the World’s Future” by Bruce Alberts (FMEJ 2, 2, 2012), soliciting views on “How could young scientists unleash curiosity and creativity to support excellence in science education?“ (Reza Afshari, Marc Creus, Rob Jenkins)
The group also produced a video on “Unleashing Creativity”; see here.
