research evaluation - Jerry Sheehan - June 22 - ICSTI 2007 Nancy

Jerry Sheehan - National Library of Medicine
"Research Evaluation: Evolving policies and practices for assessing impact"

The changing policy context for research evaluation

* Growing recognition of links between science, innovation, economic growth, health etc.

* Increased emphasis on evaluation of institutions and their research output

OECD Main Science and Technology Indicators

Changes in Governance of Public Research

* from funding basic research... to governing the science system
- increased priority setting
- increasing role of business and social groups
- new types of funding schemes
- targetting of collaborative activities
- new missions for research organisations
  - contributions to industry and society
  - knowledge translation

Increased emphasis on all levels of evaluation
- ex-ante, ex-post and in-process

- incorporation of evaluation results into policy making

Types of S&T Indicators are changing
- outputs and quality measures
- process indicators
- outcomes and impacts

Measuring Agency/Government Funding Impact

- does it change the research that is done, e.g. more challenging research

Evaluation at NIH

- Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Objectives (OPASI)
* Office of Extramural Research
- Database to track grants from start to finish

Institutional and disciplinary archives a key element

* NLM's PMC and NIH Public Access Policy

* Knowledge infrastructure

http://www.oecd.org/sti/innovation