Responsible Science Assessment: downplaying indexes, boosting quality.

Area of Science:

• Scientific research evaluation
• Academic community dynamics
• Research funding

Background:

• Growing scientific communities and stagnant funding create significant pressures.
• Current mechanisms for knowledge achievement, management, recruitment, progression, and evaluation require reevaluation.
• Knowledge is increasingly treated as a profitable commodity, leading to issues in academic quantification and assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the unsustainable levels of academic quantification and flawed individual output assessment.
• To propose solutions for abusive editorial market strategies.
• To introduce the Initiative for Responsible Scientific Assessment (IRSA) for improved research quality assessment.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of current pressures within the scientific community.
• Argument for reevaluating knowledge achievement and management mechanisms.
• Proposal for reinforcing and establishing new guidelines for research assessment.

Main Results:

• Identification of excessive academic quantification and individual output assessment problems.
• Recognition of abusive editorial market strategies as unsustainable.
• Development of the Initiative for Responsible Scientific Assessment (IRSA) framework.

Conclusions:

• Existing guidelines and practices for scientific assessment are insufficient.
• New guidelines and reinforced existing ones are necessary to promote higher quality research.
• The IRSA initiative aims to foster a more responsible and effective system for scientific assessment.