Background
One of the unintended effects of the national indicatorbased
evaluation in the Czech Republic is a danger
of prioritizing quantity of publications before quality. The
output of the evaluation has 100% influence on core
funding of research from the state budget. Therefore,
many research organizations are adopting national
model for analysing their research performance and
measuring „quality“. Misused journal-level indicators in
the evaluation simplify the necessary complex view at
the research performance.
In opposition to this trend, Masaryk University
implements bibliometric service as a supporting
tool in evaluative and decision-making procedures
and strategies.
As a case study, we introduce our approach to
investigate the research excellence with bibliometric
methods.
Objectives
Primary objective
To identify „Focus topics“ for official promotion of the
university research (evidence-based).
Secondary objective (beyond official)
To map university's research potential and to draw
attention to individuals’ excellence in contrast with
traditional faculty research trajectories.
Our approach
Bottom-up
Identification of influential research topics
• Identification of publications above threshold of
various indicators: top percentiles, normalized
citation impact, visibility.
• Network analysis of the dataset: identifying authors,
author clusters, (micro)fields, keywords.
• Interpretation of network analysis: specific research
topics.
Essential Science Indicators
• Network analysis of highly-cited publications:
identifying authors, author clusters, fields.
• Other production of affiliated authors was
investigated to verify the reliability of the highly-cited
indicator (hot topics and traditional topics with longlasting
impact).
Top-down
Involvement of faculties
• Vice-deans were requested to choose one or more
focus area of the faculty. Recommended empiricism;
tradition; prestigious grants; national evaluation;
awards.
• Analysis was reviewed and communicated with vicedeans
for research.
Results
1. Results of both top-down and bottomup
approaches met well (synergy).
2. Both panoramic and fine granular view
of research environment:
• Official presentation of focus topics (web,
media)
• „Hot topics“ and „Classics“ identified
• Profile map of research fields (size & impact)
3. The university community adopted
practise of promoting and awarding
excellence.
Bibliometrics as a pathway to (future) research strategies
Case study – seeking research excellence
Michal Petr, Monika Sieberova
Research Office, Masaryk University
| | Visit us online at scientometrics.muni.cz
Discussion
This work resulted in many supporting graphs and
tables and in benchmarking Masaryk University within
the Czech Republic. Stakeholders were aware of
further interpretation of the data.
Dean of the Faculty of Science quoted: „…excellent
results are produced mostly by small specialized teams
concentrated around a few individuals. Production of
internationally excellent results is at units of the faculty
size possible only in a few microfields.“.
What is the most important, valuable cultivating
discussion started. In comparison with points from the
national evaluation, the traditional measure of „quality“,
other value of research results was identified. This
helped to build a trust in bibliometrics as a useful
research-supporting tool. We have registered an
increasing demand for further bibliometric monitoring,
which led us to establish Centre for Scientometric
Support.
We are still on a pathway to evaluationbased
research strategies.size: occurences
colour: Category Normalized Citation Impact
Michal Petr
E: petr@rect.muni.cz
Centre for Scientometric Support
Masaryk University
Brno, Czech Republic
Monika Sieberova
E: sieberova@rect.muni.cz
size: WoS Docs
colour: Category Normalized Citation Impact