来源：《自然》
原文刊登日期：2022年1月11日
Individual researchers are assessed on a range of measures, such as the number and quality of journal articles, books and monographs they have published; their research income; the number of their students who complete postgraduate degrees; and any non-academic impact from their work, such as its influence on society or policy. In the United Kingdom, for example, this information is compressed into a composite index and the results are used to allocate funding.
对研究人员个体的评估基于一系列的标准，比如他们发表的期刊文章、书籍和专著的数量和质量；他们的研究收入；完成研究生学位的学生人数；以及他们工作带来的非学术影响，比如对社会或政策的影响。例如，英国，这些信息被压缩成一个综合指数，其结果用于分配科研资金。
UK public funding goes preferentially to the university departments with the highest-performing researchers. But assessments that measure individual performance make it harder for institutions to recognize science conducted in teams. Moreover, research assessments have tended to focus on final published results, whereas researchers are increasingly producing more diverse outputs, including data sets, reproducibility studies and registered reports.
英国的公共资金优先提供给研究人员表现最好的大学院系。但是，衡量个人表现的评估使得机构更难认可以团队形式开展的科学研究。此外，研究评估往往侧重于最终发表的结果，而研究人员正日益产生更多样化的产出，包括数据集、复现性研究和注册报告。
And then there’s the question of costs. The 2014 UK Research Excellence Framework cost about £246 million. The lion’s share was borne by universities. It included the costs of academic staff who served on the review panels; and the costs to institutions, which go to great lengths to prepare their staff, including running mock assessment exercises.
还有成本的问题。2014年英国卓越研究框架耗资约2.46亿英镑。其中大部分由大学承担。它包括在审查小组中任职的学术人员的费用；还有机构的成本，这些机构花了很大的精力让员工做好准备，包括举办模拟评估演习。
Researchers who study assessment methods regularly put forward ideas for how evaluations could change for the better. Last August, the International Network of Research Management Societies fleshed out a framework called SCOPE. This encourages funders to design evaluation systems around the ‘values’ they wish to assess. For example, rewarding competitive behaviour might require a different set of criteria from incentivizing collegiality. The SCOPE framework also proposes that funders collaborate with the people being evaluated to design the assessment, and urges them to work with experts in research evaluation.
科研评估方法的研究人员经常提出如何让评估变得更好的想法。去年8月，国际研究管理协会网络充实了一个名为SCOPE的框架。这鼓励资助机构围绕它们希望评估的“价值”设计评估系统。例如，奖励竞争行为可能需要一套不同于激励同僚合作的标准。SCOPE框架还建议资助机构与被评估者合作设计评估，并敦促他们与科研评估专家合作。
The importance of co-design cannot be overstated: it will enable the views of different research stakeholders to be represented, and ensure that no single voice dominates. Large, research-intensive institutions often do well in conventional evaluations, because they focus their multi-year strategies on attracting and retaining researchers who meet the criteria of success at publishing results and bringing in income.
共同设计的重要性怎么强调都不过分：它将代表不同研究利益相关者的观点，并确保没有单一的声音占主导地位。大型的研究密集型机构通常在传统的评估中做得很好，因为它们把多年战略的重点放在吸引和留住那些在发表成果和带来收入方面达到成功标准的研究人员上。
Smaller institutions cannot always compete on these grounds — but could gain if future assessments include new criteria, such as rewarding collaborations, or if assessments put less weight on ability to obtain research funding. A broader range of evaluation criteria could ensure that a greater diversity of institutions have opportunities to do well.
规模较小的机构不能总是在这些方面进行竞争——但如果未来的评估包括新的标准，如奖励合作，或者如果评估对获得研究资金的能力重视程度降低，小型科研机构则可能会获益。更广泛的评价标准可以确保更多的机构有机会做得更好。
Larger institutions should not in any way feel threatened by these changes. Making research culture more welcoming requires systemic change. Research evaluation is core to the research system. If evaluation criteria can be made more representative of how research is done, that much-needed culture change will move one important step closer.
较大的机构不应以任何方式感到受到这些变化的威胁。让研究文化更受欢迎需要系统性的变革。科研评价是研究体系的核心。如果评价标准能更加代表研究的进行方式，那么急需的文化变革将向更近一步迈出重要的一步。