Taking scholarly books into account, part II: a comparison of 19 European countries in evaluation and funding

Elea Giménez-Toledo, Jorge Mañana-Rodríguez (), Tim C. E. Engels, Raf Guns, Emanuel Kulczycki, Michael Ochsner, Janne Pölönen, Gunnar Sivertsen and Alesia A. Zuccala
Additional contact information
Elea Giménez-Toledo: Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Jorge Mañana-Rodríguez: Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Tim C. E. Engels: University of Antwerp
Raf Guns: University of Antwerp
Emanuel Kulczycki: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
Michael Ochsner: University of Lausanne
Janne Pölönen: Federation of Finnish Learned Societies
Gunnar Sivertsen: Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education
Alesia A. Zuccala: University of Copenhagen

Scientometrics, 2019, vol. 118, issue 1, No 11, 233-251

Abstract: Abstract In May 2016, an article published in Scientometrics, titled ‘Taking scholarly books into account: current developments in five European countries’, introduced a comparison of book evaluation schemes implemented within five European countries. The present article expands upon this work by including a broader and more heterogeneous set of countries (19 European countries in total) and adding new variables for comparison. Two complementary classification models were used to point out the commonalities and differences between each country’s evaluation scheme. First, we employed a double-axis classification to highlight the degree of ‘formalization’ for each scheme, second, we classified each country according to the presence or absence of a bibliographic database. Each country’s evaluation scheme possesses its own unique merits and details; however the result of this study was the identification of four main types of book evaluation systems, leading to the following main conclusions. First, countries may be differentiated on the basis of those that use a formalized evaluation system and those that do not. Also, countries that do use a formalized evaluation system either have a supra-institutional database, quality labels for publishers and/or publisher rankings in place to harmonize the evaluations. Countries that do not use a formalized system tend to rely less on quantitative evaluation procedures. Each evaluation type has its advantages and disadvantages; therefore an exchange between countries might help to generate future improvements.

Keywords: Scholarly books; Book publishers; Evaluation processes; Classification; Research evaluation; Social sciences; Humanities; Book series; 00–02 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-018-2956-7

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