Lessons for research culture reform: Empirical study of how excellence became institutionalized and contested in Dutch university medical centers
Rinze Benedictus
(Leiden University)
Alex Rushforth
(Leiden University)
Short abstract
This study provides long term empirical evidence for the slow institutionalization of excellence in Dutch academic health research and the consequences for research integrity and culture. Also, it demonstrates the possibility of reforming research assessment in an excellence-shaped research culture.
Long abstract
The excellence notion of quality that deeply affected universities over the past decade has been linked to many research integrity issues. As such, it has been extensively critiqued and analyzed, but related attempts to improve research assessment have received less scholarly attention.
This meta-science project tries to address that gap by demonstrating the possibility and the complexity of research assessment reform in a nation-wide, single-discipline case study. The study shows how the excellence notion of research quality became institutionalized in academic health research in The Netherlands over a long-term period.
The study takes a distinctive methodological approach. The researcher worked in one university medical center where the excellence notion became contested and reform of research assessment was initiated. The combination of this situated access to internal decision-making with a long-term, macrolevel perspective on science policy gives unparallelled insights in understanding the complexities of reform. The study draws on interviews with 50 academic health researchers and policy makers in The Netherlands and analysis of hundreds of (policy)documents, using concepts from organizational sociology.
It shows how the concepts of rationalization and organizational completeness can help to understand why university medical centers, radical mergers of medical faculties and academic hospitals, were constructed. These organizations shaped conditions for knowledge production in unwanted ways, through the Matthew effect, hyper-competition and reproduction of inequalities. At the same time, this study provides empirical evidence how research institutions, also after decades of institutionalized excellence, can initiate a process towards reforming research assessment and improving research culture.
Accepted Paper
Short abstract
Long abstract
The excellence notion of quality that deeply affected universities over the past decade has been linked to many research integrity issues. As such, it has been extensively critiqued and analyzed, but related attempts to improve research assessment have received less scholarly attention.
This meta-science project tries to address that gap by demonstrating the possibility and the complexity of research assessment reform in a nation-wide, single-discipline case study. The study shows how the excellence notion of research quality became institutionalized in academic health research in The Netherlands over a long-term period.
The study takes a distinctive methodological approach. The researcher worked in one university medical center where the excellence notion became contested and reform of research assessment was initiated. The combination of this situated access to internal decision-making with a long-term, macrolevel perspective on science policy gives unparallelled insights in understanding the complexities of reform. The study draws on interviews with 50 academic health researchers and policy makers in The Netherlands and analysis of hundreds of (policy)documents, using concepts from organizational sociology.
It shows how the concepts of rationalization and organizational completeness can help to understand why university medical centers, radical mergers of medical faculties and academic hospitals, were constructed. These organizations shaped conditions for knowledge production in unwanted ways, through the Matthew effect, hyper-competition and reproduction of inequalities. At the same time, this study provides empirical evidence how research institutions, also after decades of institutionalized excellence, can initiate a process towards reforming research assessment and improving research culture.
Research cultures and research qualities
Session 1 Monday 30 June, 2025, -