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Whilst the extant literature on the publish-or-perish culture in the West is plentiful, there remains surprisingly little scholarship exploring the ways managerialist policies have become integral to local identities, work and life in Chinese universities. We address this gap by taking China's endeavour to become first in the global higher education field as an entry point and reflecting on our lived experiences as early career researchers (ECRs) in the form of a duoethnography. Our dialogues consider how, and with what effects, Chinese higher education privileges the notion of research excellence and works to construct professional identities. As grassroots ECRs epitomising a force to negotiate, challenge and resist the contemporary research order from below, we identify academic publishing as 'the best strategy' to get ahead in the academic game. Despite our compliance with the regime of new managerialism, our narratives also suggest that we are attempting to resist the drive for research productivity through envisaging a slower tempo in writing and aspiring for greater reflection. We provide readers with a range of individual- and collective-based strategies for being and progressing as grassroots ECRs, and implications for universities are also discussed at the end of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the twenty-first century, universities in many countries, including China, have introduced tenure-track employment to attract outstanding faculty. Through a survey of 1099 faculty members from 21 high-level research universities in China, this study used a quasi-experimental method to examine the effect of the tenure track on faculty members' academic performance. The results suggest that the implementation of the tenure track led to an increase in the number of academic publications, but a decrease in the number of high-quality academic articles. The study further analyzed the underlying mechanisms by which the tenure track affected faculty members' academic performance, and found that introducing the tenure track increased cross-institutional collaboration, thereby promoting academic productivity. However, it resulted in a reduction in research collaboration within the institution, which hindered academic publication in high-impact journals. In terms of disciplinary heterogeneity, this study shows that the negative effect of the tenure track on publication quality was more significant in science than in engineering. Based on the research results above, this paper proposed several suggestions for improving the tenure system to ensure research excellence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this article is to promote faculty research excellence and visibility in Nigerian universities through open access publishing. The article begins by briefly discussing the vital role that universities play in research, which is a fundamental duty of faculty members. The study provides a succinct definition of research excellence and visibility, as well as the methods for assessing research excellence. This leads to a brief discussion on promoting faculty research visibility through publication on open access platforms such as open access journals and open access institutional repositories to increase citations rates and enhance visibility. The paper further examined several open access theses concerning publication in open access journals and institutional repositories. The study concludes that it is imperative for university administrators, libraries, and librarians to actively encourage faculty members to publish their research articles in open access journals and institutional repositories. This initiative will not only enhance the visibility of their publications but also ensure the long-term sustainability of the open access movement. Based on these findings, the researchers have proposed specific recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific advisory boards are frequently established to provide scientific insights and advice to policymakers. Advisory board appointing bodies often state that research excellence and scientific seniority are the main grounds on which advisory board members are selected. Many authors have pointed out that there is more to giving good scientific advice than just being an expert for a specific research field. The aim of this study is to analyse if and how research excellence correlates with the probability of being appointed as a scientific advisory board member. We collected data for scientific advisory boards from both the USA and Germany. We use logit regression models to analyse how research excellence correlates with the probability of appointment to a scientific advisory board. Our results suggest that research excellence is insignificant or even correlates negatively with the probability of being appointed to a scientific advisory board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTIn the last decade, the European Commission (EC) developed an ambitious strategy to promote RRI across the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (H2020). This effort resulted in a significant number of European-funded projects that substantially expanded the available knowledge of the theory, methods and implementation of RRI. However, various evaluations and studies revealed a limited and diffuse implementation of the concept. In this article, we aim to shed some light on this matter with a study covering eight programme lines of H2020 (ERC, MSCA, LEIT, FOOD, ENV, SEC, WIDENING and EURATOM). We employ an extensive policy document analysis and 112 semi-structured interviews carried out with various stakeholders. We argue that the limited implementation of RRI in H2020 is the result of conflicts with existing values, science cultures, economic objectives, restricted resources for its implementation and a lack of clarification around what RRI means.

Numerous national research assessment policies aim to promote 'excellence' and incentivize scholars to publish their research in the most prestigious journals or with the most prestigious book publishers. We investigate the practicalities of assessing book outputs in different countries, concentrating on evaluation based on the prestige of book publishers (e.g. Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, and Spain). Additionally, we test whether such judgments are transparent and yield consistent results. We show inconsistencies in the levelling of publishers, such as cases where the same publisher is ranked as prestigious and not-so-prestigious in different states or within the same country in consequent years. Likewise, we find that verification of compliance with the mandatory prerequisites is not always possible because of the lack of transparency. Our findings support doubts about whether the assessment of books based on a judgement about their publishers yields acceptable outcomes. Even more, currently used rankings of publishers focus on evaluating the gatekeeping role of publishers but do not assess other essential stages in scholarly book publishing (e.g. dissemination or preservation). Our suggestion for future research is to develop approaches to evaluate books by accounting for the value added to every book at every publishing stage, which is vital for the quality of book outputs from research assessment and scholarly communication perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The purpose of this study was the programs and measures related to the world-class university system in the form of a comparative study. Methods: The research method in this research was analytical For this purpose, books, study backgrounds and researches have been done and the existing documents about world-class universities in China, Japan, Singapore, Denmark, Taiwan, Hank Kong, South Korea, Canada, Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, Russia. The United States has been studied and analyzed. The collected methods were analyzed qualitatively. Results: The research findings showed that the measures related to the establishment of world-class universities in most countries, including financial support and investment in top universities, especially in the field of research, research improvement and excellence, educational excellence and internationalization. University and in some countries, managerial transformation, such as the reception of government and university officials from the emerging university model and its placement as one of the most important policies in the field of university system. In some countries, emphasis has also been placed on modernizing and rebuilding the educational and research infrastructure of universities and higher education institutions. Conclusion: According to the results of the research, it can be acknowledged that there is agreement and difference in the measures taken to create and develop a world-class university, and Using of these differences and similarities, the higher education system of Iran with according to its conditions and requirements, it can choose the appropriate actions and components as well as formulate strategic plans to achieve a world-class university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing a thesis has always been considered one of the most challenging aspects of being an undergraduate student. However, no research on the difficulties of undergraduate students in the setting of Local Colleges and Universities (LCUs) in the Philippines has been identified. The purpose of this sequential explanatory research was to evaluate the challenges and obstacles experienced by undergraduate students while finishing their theses. Students pursuing a Bachelor of Physical Education at City College of Angeles in the Philippines who have completed writing and defending their theses comprise the study's participants. After gathering data from 116 students via an online survey (Nmale = 59, Nfemale = 57) for the quantitative phase, it was determined that infrastructure, communication, and time management presented a moderate amount of difficulty for students. Additionally, after the thematic analysis, three major themes and six sub-themes emerged: (1) Internet connectivity challenges and communication (connectivity issues and inadequate scientific resources, as well as communication with thesis groupmates), (2) Data gathering impediments (participant recruitment and rejection), and (3) Time Management issues (drawbacks of working students and thesis writing contrasted with other academic course works). Based on the findings, this report offers recommendations for tackling these obstacles and issues. Finally, the study's limitations and proposals for further research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing impetus on academics working in higher education to evidence the wider impact (i.e. the social and economic benefits) of their research. As academic disciplines, tourism in general, and sustainable tourism more specifically, evolved to understand and address the real-world challenges and opportunities facing the sector. It is thus worrying that there are indications of a growing divide between researchers and beneficiaries. This editorial introduces a special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism dedicated to showcasing examples of sustainable tourism research that are bucking the trend by clearly evidencing the applied value of research and the routes to creating change. First, we outline the footings of the 'impact agenda' within academia and examine the distinction between the impact in its academic and wider forms. With the focus on wider impact, we then consider its provenance within the field of sustainable tourism before outlining the themes underpinning the eight articles comprising this special issue. We end by considering the changes that are required within the academic environment and to the psyche and approach of tourism scholars in order to enhance the likelihood of wider impact being generated from the outcomes of scholarly activity within the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research productivity and research excellence are elements essential to the creation of a conducive research environment, in which research publications, research dissemination, and research utilization, are key in fostering the sustainability of higher education institutions. In this study, the current institutional policies, practices, and initiatives that encourage research productivity were explored. A mixed-method methodology, embodying a sequential exploratory approach, was adopted for the study. Non-probability, convenient sampling was used to select Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). A survey questionnaire comprising closed and open-ended questions was used for data collection. The data collection tool was piloted and refined. An integrative analysis consisting of descriptive statistical analysis and thematic analysis was used to analyze the collected data. The findings of this study highlight the instrumental role of university staff and students for research productivity. Building an institutional research culture was seen to boost research productivity. Increasing research capacity and visibility, the implementation of appropriate management infrastructure and the adoption of research policies were found to be effective strategies to support research productivity within Higher Education settings. Support for research publication and publication performance management was similarly identified to improve research productivity. It is recommended that the policies, practices, and initiatives set by HEIs should focus on research productivity, creating an institutional research culture, supporting research publications, and research performance management, in order to drive research productivity and contribute towards sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adequacy of research performance of universities or research institutes have often been evaluated and understood in two axes: “quantity” (i.e. size or volume) and “quality” (i.e. what we define here as a measure of excellence that is considered theoretically independent of size or volume, such as clarity in diamond grading). The purpose of this article is, however, to introduce a third construct named “substantiality” (“ATSUMI” in Japanese) of research performance and to demonstrate its importance in evaluating/understanding research universities.

In this article, I present the results of an analysis of the geopolitical diversity of 61,781 papers that have been published in 17 leading international journals in development studies, and the results of another analysis in which I analysed the career trajectories of 260 faculty members working at 10 highly valued development studies departments. Regarding geopolitical diversity, I found a systemic inequality in terms of both research output and education trajectories. I argue that these imbalances contradict the expressed goals and values of development studies as a discipline that aims to reduce geopolitical inequalities. Policy implications are also discussed, in which I propose to reconsider academic recruitment standards and to raise the visibility of different epistemologies of published research in development studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ranking lists of highly cited researchers receive much public attention. In common interpretations, highly cited researchers are perceived to have made extraordinary contributions to science. Thus, the metrics of highly cited researchers are often linked to notions of breakthroughs, scientific excellence, and lone geniuses.

Academics all over the world are feeling the increasing pressure to attain satisfactory research performance. Since research is not the only activity required of academics, though, the debate on how it may be coupled with other knowledge transfer activities like teaching, patenting, and dissemination has been captivating scholars interested in higher education. The literature is surprisingly silent about the interplay between research performance and other roles and tasks that faculty are expected to carry out, namely academic citizenship, intended as the service that they provide to their institution, to the scientific community, and to the larger society. Through a negative binomial regression conducted on 692 Italian academics in management, this paper investigates both the direct and moderating effect exerted by academic citizenship on the relationship between research performance in two subsequent evaluation exercises, thus advancing our knowledge of the relationship between research and service. Findings show that institutional service acts as a pure moderator, discipline-based service is a quasi-moderator, while public service exerts only a direct negative effect on research performance. In light of the emergent interplay between research and service, the necessity to boost reflection on academic citizenship is discussed and suggestions for its acknowledgement and advancement are formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

proving university students’ research skills, research integrity and best standards for scientific excellence is crucial for all disciplines. Marina Klimenko, a senior lecturer at the University of Florida, developed an innovative digital textbook entitled Research Methods in the Social Sciences (2020) with the focus on investigative psychology. The edition was powered by the e-learning portal and published by Sentia Publishing. The author’s own epistemological and research expertise is combined here with her competence in higher education didactics. Klimenko’s textbook seems to be perfectly tailored for prospective researchers – and useful for various disciplines representing the social sciences and humanities.

Research excellence (RE) is a relatively new concept which has been gaining traction among scholars, government agencies and funders. No universally accepted definition of RE exists. In this paper, however, it is perceived as the sustained conceptualisation, design, execution and dissemination of optimal volumes of high quality research products which contribute effectively to societal wellbeing. The concept of research excellence is just emerging in Kenya. Indeed, the literature reviewed in this paper reveals that the perception, measurement, and reporting of research excellence in Kenya is largely unknown. Therefore, this paper seeks to unravel these issues as a means of promoting research excellence in the country. The study anchoring this paper assessed the top papers produced in Kenya to gauge the country's RE. Data were obtained from Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection databases, the Essential Science Indicators and the Journal Citation Reports. Specifically, the paper explores the trend and volume of the highly cited and hot papers as the percentage share of Kenya's total research publications; identifies the journals and assessed the quality of the journals in which Kenya's highly cited and hot papers are published; examines the subject content and research field yielding the most highly cited and hot research papers in Kenya; determines the extent of research collaboration in the highly cited and hot papers; and benchmarks Kenya's performance in the top papers against the rest of Africa. The study reveals an increase in the publication of the top papers, largely in the form of journal articles; a heavy co-authorship of the papers; a favourable performance by Kenya when compared to the rest of the African countries; and the publication of the country's top papers in prestigious international journals. Kenya's RE is partly dependent on the dissemination of its research in high impact factor journals. In addition, the country's RE is heavily dependent on the performance of science fields such as internal medicine, environmental sciences and ecology, and public health and agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing emphasis on the societal impact of sustainability research has implications for how we understand, measure, and support research excellence. This shift is particularly relevant for international research undertaken through partnerships between collaborators in the global North and South because the reframing of research excellence has implications for developing capacity of Southern-based researchers. Against this backdrop, this study examines twelve large-scale, multi-consortium, transdisciplinary climate resilience research and development programs. We consider how the notions of research excellence are manifested in these programs and how they are consequently shaping the North-South partnerships and research ecosystem in the global South. A meta-ethnographic approach is used to analyse internal and published documents of the programs. In doing so, a continuum of research excellence (spanning knowledge-driven, demand-driven, and societal impact-driven excellence) and its effects on the research ecosystem are shown. We highlight that current capacity support at both individual and institutional levels have not yet caught up with the increasing expectations placed on researchers in these programs to pursue all dimensions of research excellence. This study raises further questions about whether 'research capacity for impact' should constitute a defining attribute of an 'excellent researcher' for all sustainability researchers in the future. • Researchers are increasingly expected to work between the production and the use of evidence. • The expanding notions of research excellence shape the dynamics within North-South collaboration. • Clarity is needed on whether 'capacity for delivering research impact' is for some or all sustainability researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pursuing excellence is a legitimate ambition of many scholars worldwide. However, between wishful thinking and real facts lies a great leap that can only be bridged using a myriad of resources. We label these the excellence repertoire. Based on 25 interviews with successful communication scholars, we show the key role of accumulating social, economic, and institutional capital in shaping the excellence repertoire. The study argues that the fetishization of productivity might jeopardize the traditional ethos of science, in a context where research excellence may be disconnected from the quality of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the intersection between the gender culture and the neoliberal transformation of research and academia. It focuses on the impact of the transformation on the early-career women academic researchers in the Czech Republic (CR). It examines a sample of women academics to see how their career paths unfold over time and identify the mechanisms, factors, and barriers that affect their academic careers in the early stages. The article looks at 14 excellent early-career women academics from different domains based on two interviews repeated after 7 years and investigates the trajectory of their academic paths from the longitudinal perspective. The combination of a highly conservative gender culture, the neoliberal reforms introduced in the field of research and academia over the past decade, and the resistance to promoting gender equality measures make the CR an informative case to study. I argue that the gender culture of the CR and Czech research and academic institutions and the conditions for work-life balance combine with the neoliberal reforms to have a very negative impact on the early stage of women's academic careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic points to the need for scientists to pool their efforts in order to understand this disease and respond to the ensuing crisis. Other global challenges also require such scientific cooperation. Yet in academic institutions, reward structures and incentives are based on systems that primarily fuel the competition between (groups of) scientific researchers. Competition between individual researchers, research groups, research approaches, and scientific disciplines is seen as an important selection mechanism and driver of academic excellence. These expected benefits of competition have come to define the organizational culture in academia. There are clear indications that the overreliance on competitive models undermines cooperative exchanges that might lead to higher quality insights. This damages the well‐being and productivity of individual researchers and impedes efforts towards collaborative knowledge generation. Insights from social and organizational psychology on the side effects of relying on performance targets, prioritizing the achievement of success over the avoidance of failure, and emphasizing self‐interest and efficiency, clarify implicit mechanisms that may spoil valid attempts at transformation. The analysis presented here elucidates that a broader change in the academic culture is needed to truly benefit from current attempts to create more open and collaborative practices for cumulative knowledge generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of highly cited papers (HCPs) to assess research excellence (RE) is widespread but the emergence of alternative metrics for assessing research impact has ignited debates on their role in measuring RE. This paper undertakes an altmetrics analysis of South Africa's highly cited papers with a view to assessing the extent of online attention to these papers; the correlation between citation and altmetrics data and nuances in research fields, using conventional and altmetrics data. The Web of Science's (WoS) Incites Essential Science Indicator (ESI) database was used to extract the metrics of HCPs while the online portal altmetric.com was used to obtain the altmetrics data for each HCP. The Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between citation data and altmetrics of the HCPs. The results indicate that clinical medicine posted the highest number of HCPs but was behind Space Science and Molecular Biology & Genetics in terms of citations per paper. Only six fields recorded more than 100 HCPs. Overall, South Africa's HCPs have the highest altmetrics presence in Dimensions followed by Mendeley, Twitter, Facebook, News Outlets and Blogs. However, each research field exhibited different patterns as far as online attention of their papers is concerned. The implications of the plausibility of using altmetrics in assessing RE in South Africa are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with problems related to research excellence for innovation and their societal impact, «brain drain» and the formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems. These problems already exist in Ukraine, but they can become exacerbated on the way of its integration into European structures, if the innovation policy does not change. The indicators of research, development and innovation activity in Ukraine and experience of several EU countries are analyzed. The recommendations of the Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility Panel (2016) and the proposals of the European League of Research Universities (2017) are considered. It is proved that these problems in the process of the European integration movement are exacerbated and can be considered as challenges for the national innovation system and for individual universities. However, it is noted that Ukraine can use the existing positive experience of European countries to overcome similar problems. At the same time, new policies and management will have to counteract the existing approaches, it is also necessary to make changes in the legislation. In order to overcome these challenges, it was proposed to implement public policy and management measures that were proposed in the author's previous work, in particular to carry out assessment of scientists according to the UK experience, but somewhat simplified, and to introduce a performance based funding system.

In this article, we critically reflect on three Syrian refugee research projects that were conducted simultaneously in Ontario, Canada, in order to: (1) strengthen the community system of support for refugee newcomers; (2) address social isolation of Syrian parents and seniors; and (3) promote wellbeing of Syrian youth. Our purpose in this article is to demonstrate a tangible way of assessing research projects which claim to be community-based, and in so doing gain a deeper understanding of how research can be a means of contributing to refugee newcomer resilience. Our assessment of the three studies was done through the reflective lens of the Community Based Research Excellence Tool (CBRET). CBRET is a reflective tool designed to assess the quality and impact of community-based research projects, considering the six domains of community-driven, participation, rigour, knowledge mobilisation, community mobilisation and societal impact. Our assessment produced four main lessons. The first two lessons point to the benefit of holistic emphasis on the six categories covered in the CBRET tool, and to adaptability in determining corresponding indicators when using CBRET. The last two lessons suggest that research can be pursued in such a way that reinforces the rescue story and promotes the safety of people who arrive as refugees. Our lessons suggest that both the findings and the process of research can be interventions towards social change. The diversity of the three case examples also demonstrates that these lessons can be applied to projects which focus on both individual-level and community-level outcomes.

Research excellence has been the main thrust of higher education reforms in several countries, but its translation into coherent policies has proved to be controversial. Literature has delved into the role exerted by contextual factors and individual characteristics in the adoption of behaviours inspired by social values. Our study aims at investigating the effect of individual and contextual features and their interplay in the quest for research excellence. We formulate and test hypotheses on a dataset collecting the publication records of the population of 4510 Italian academics in business and management and in architecture in the 2004–2013 period. Findings disclose that, alongside previous achievements, research-oriented settings favour research excellence. In addition, we show that a research-oriented context enhances the publication record of academics without highly ranked publications, whereas it slightly reduces the productivity of outstanding academics. Implications for public policy, especially in terms of performance measurement systems, are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment and promotion of professional development centers at higher education institutions (HEIs) play a significant role in building and supporting faculty teaching and research capacity. Although not all universities and colleges assign teaching the same significance that they give to research, there are many best practices of professional development programs and centers in research and teaching at HEIs, especially at flagship universities. Flagship universities serve as leaders in the development of regional and global higher education with standards of excellence for research and teaching. This study examines several professional development best practices at 16 flagship universities, with a goal to improve student learning, classroom instruction, and research quality. Five recommendations derived from four identified strategic best practices are provided to HEI administrators in the conclusion section on how to develop and strengthen effective practices to promote optimal professional development at the institution-wide and department/unit levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the process of evaluating the economic and societal impact of research undertaken in university settings. In this paper, we explore the accounts of senior academics and user-assessors, populating disciplinary sub-panels spanning the humanities and social sciences, convened to judge and 'score' the impact claims of researchers from UK universities as a new component of research evaluation within the specific context of the UK's performance-based research funding system (PBRFS), the Research Excellence Framework (REF). We perceive from their accounts the emergence of a new and liminal space in the production of scholarly 'distinction' that is unlike archetypal modalities of academic excellence. Analogously, we identify an emotional and intellectual vulnerability in the review process and the loosening of the structures reviewers traditionally call upon in making value-determinations that simultaneously facilitate their role as impact evaluators and create new modalities in scholarly distinction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article documents recent trends in science funding support in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We analyse these trends at the SSA regional level alongside a summary of four case studies of science funding in four Science Granting Councils (SGCs) in East Africa. Our findings support the literature on science funding in SSA regarding low levels of funding, cross-country engagement, and the need for capacity building. However, we also find there are tensions among funding and policy actors around the perceived ways in which investment in science will benefit society. We argue that the narratives and logics of science funders and their roots in 'Republic of Science' vs. 'Embedded Autonomy' rationales for SGC activity must be more transparent to enable critical engagement with the ideas being used to justify spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, a wealth of empirical evidence has accumulated describing the merits of team-based, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research, including: increased productivity among researchers, greater citation impact, increased multi-sector engagement, and the generation of novel solutions to grand challenges. Funding agencies have accordingly increased the frequency of large-scale collaborative and partnered grant opportunities. However, institutional structures and processes can inadvertently limit team-based interdisciplinary research at universities. Research Clusters (which we define as interdisciplinary networks of researchers who organize to solve key challenges facing society) provide a flexible and adaptable mechanism to enable collaborative research across internal and external institutional boundaries. Versions of research clusters are now commonly a central theme in research strategic plans at universities, but there remain very few resources available to research administrators and leadership to support the development of their internal strategies and processes to support research clusters. Here, we describe our experiences developing and implementing initiatives to catalyze clusters of research excellence at the institutional level and reflect on early successes and challenges. We share our framework for identifying, evaluating, and catalyzing research clusters and provide specific examples of internal processes and analytical tools that we have developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European integration in research funding can be interpreted as a complex, conflict-ridden historical process containing paradigmatic shifts in cultural values and political goals. One of these transformations entails a change of objectives from promoting transnational cooperation of research institutions towards fostering the 'scientific excellence' of individual researchers. Institutionally, this is mirrored in the establishment of a genuinely supranational funding organization, the European Research Council (ERC). Led by a Mertonian sociological framework, the paper presents the results of an empirical study on the impact of the ERC's funding upon public universities from the perspective of researcher's vis-à-vis their institutions. Findings comprise conditions and contexts, action strategies and consequences of the Europeanization of universities, such as country- and discipline-specific pathways, the re-distribution of tasks and resources in market-based university competition, effects on researchers' scientific careers and mobility, and the impact of funding on the disciplines and knowledge content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment of research based on the journal in which it is published is a widely adopted practice. Some research assessments use the Web of Science (WoS) to identify 'high quality' journals, which are assumed to publish excellent research. The authority of WoS on journal quality stems from its selection of journals based on editorial standards and scientific impact criteria. These can be considered as universalistic criteria, meaning that they can be applied to any journal regardless of its place of publication, language, or discipline. In this article we examine the coverage by WoS of journals produced in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. We use a logistic regression to examine the probability of a journal to be covered by WoS given universalistic criteria (editorial standards and scientific impact of the journal) and particularistic criteria (country, language, and discipline of the journal). We find that it is not possible to predict the inclusion of journals in WoS only through the universalistic criteria because particularistic variables such as country of the journal, its discipline, and language are strongly related to inclusion in WoS. We conclude that using WoS as a universalistic tool for research assessment can disadvantage science published in journals with adequate editorial standards and scientific merit. We discuss the implications of these findings within the research evaluation literature, specifically for countries and disciplines not extensively covered by WoS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]