Responsible Metrics: Why Management Matters

Presentation at ILIDE19 -

Management like numbers, especially numbers that gradually (or quickly!) increase over time. It is very easy to explain to more senior management that a 20 is bigger than a 10. However, when it comes to metrics in relation to research, numbers fluctuate over time, bigger is not always better and numbers don’t reveal the whole picture – things that are clear to those working with research outputs, but not necessarily understood at a strategic development level. A management culture that rewards increasing measures over quality, innovation and collaborative interdisciplinary research can lead to many unintended consequences, but often the effect of a change in policy to value research culture over metrics can lead to the measures decreasing for a period. This presentation will cover why responsible research indicators are important and the role that institutional managers have in their adoption. We will briefly cover the various approaches that are being adopted by institutions, including DORA, the Leiden Manifesto and the Metric Tide, and then discuss some of the key information that institutional managers need to consider in using research metrics to inform institutional policy.