Menu
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on email
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on email
Menu
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on email
Menu
Menu
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.
This activity is currently active.
Membership of GYA activities is reserved to current or former GYA members only, so please log in to view further information and options.
As a non-member, you can sign up for the monthly GYA newsletter by using the newsletter sign-up form at the very bottom of this page.
Active members – Active group members are current GYA members proactively participating in the group’s overall work and progress, by contributing to discussions or (text) outputs, or organising and running workshops and other (online) meetings.
Followers – Followers of a group are subscribers to the mailing list, but are not expected to actively contribute. Followers may be current members or alumni of the GYA.
Past Members – Past members are GYA members and alumni who have previously been active in the group. They are no longer included in group communications/mailing lists.
You are not logged in. Membership options are only available to members and alumni when logged in.
N/A
For GYA members and alumni only: connect to the group, collaborate and discuss with other members on the GYA-internal Agora platform here.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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. Until today, we have come out with an analysis from over 80 documents we obtained across many countries. The resulting publication titled “Global landscape of research assessment” is now in the final steps of completion. We expect to publish the report in the end first half of 2023.
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.
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
In May 2023, the GYA-IAP-ISC synthesis paper on the Future of Research Evaluation was published, to which group co-leads and members had contributed at various stages. Co-lead Carlo D’Ippoliti and alumna Shaheen Motala-Timol had served on the Scoping Group with IAP and ISC representatives to produce the report.
In January 2023, group co-lead Yensi Flores Bueso attended the first in-person meeting of the CoARA steering board in Brussels, Belgium. During the meeting, several decisions about CoARA’s short, medium and long-term goals were made, and the group’s way of organising its work were defined. Furthermore, the internationalisation strategy of CoARA was discussed, and Yensi will be part of a subgroup for the internationalisation strategy going forward.
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 the 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, by invitation of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. A report which provides a set of comments and recommendations on replicability, based on GYA members’ input and on their personal expertise, entitled “Young Scientist Perspectives on Replicability and Reproducibility in Science and Engineering” was forthcoming.
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.
