How Wageningen University and Research Centre Managed to Influence Researchers Publishing Behaviour Towards more Quality, Impact and Visibility

Wageningen University and Research Center (WUR) is one of the most prestigious research institutions in the world in life sciences and improved significantly in several rankings over the last years. One of the ‘drivers’ of this success story is a comprehensive quality management exercise based on Research information from an integrated CRI system, that managed to influence researchers publishing behaviour towards more quality, impact and visibility.So first WUR‘s highly efficient research quality management exercise is introduced, that was established some years ago and enrolls in 4 phases: (1) define quality criteria (2) measure quality criteria (3) interpret quality criteria (4) act accordingly. Comprehensive bibliometric figures from the last 10 years show, that the approach had the intended effect.Furthermore the paper portrays the very inspiring strategy WUR applied to ensure acceptance and use of the system in favour of data quality and -quantity; the approach is based on an institution-wide network of CRIS ‘super-users‘, who - after being educated and certified in context of a train-the-trainer exercise - in their organisational context act as evangelists, encourage colleagues to use the system and educate others.