ANVUR

On statistics and virtue: ANVUR’s criteria for the evaluation of research quality (VQR 2020-2024) and the European reform of research evaluation (COARA)

Posted on , updated on by Maria Chiara Pievatolo

The European Union, recognizing that quantitative evaluation of research harms quality for the sake of quantity, urged evaluators, universities, research institutions, and scholarly societies to join together in a coalition (COARA) for the reform of evaluation itself. Even the Italian evaluation agency. ANVUR, joined the coalition and committed itself to reducing bibliometrics to a complement […]

ANVUR’s rule: state evaluation and open peer review in Italy

Posted on , updated on by Maria Chiara Pievatolo

This summer the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of University and Research Systems (ANVUR) denied scientificity and excellence (“classe A”) to Open Research Europe (ORE) for general sociology. Recently, however, ANVUR has updated its rules for classifying journals, adding an article 18 entitled ‘Transitional regulation for open peer review’. The ORE affair was the […]

Taking all the running one can do, to keep in the same place: ANVUR’s complicated relationship with the COARA agreement

Posted on , updated on by Maria Chiara Pievatolo

1. An unpromising starting point In a 2018 article, Alberto Baccini and Giuseppe De Nicolao described the Italian academic system as “an unprecedented in vivo experiment in governing and controlling research and teaching via automatic bibliometric tools”. Italian universities and research institutions are subject to widespread bibliometric measurements. Their use in research evaluation exercises (Valutazione […]

Dicer’s oaths: ORE, COARA and the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research Systems

Posted on , updated on by Maria Chiara Pievatolo

As reported by Roars, the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of University and Research Systems (ANVUR)  has refused to recognize Open Research Europe (ORE) as a scientific “journal” because it does not publish in single, self-contained fascicles and does not practice anonymous peer review. Open Research Europe is an infrastructure provided by the European […]