Research Evaluation and Its Implications for Academic Research in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands

Policies targeting efficiency and effectiveness have increased accountability demands on universities. This paper compares the research evaluations of British and Dutch universities, from the 1980s to 2009, in order to understand the implications of such evaluations for university management and research. Despite differences in the evaluation mechanisms, similarities between stability and change in academic practices abound. In both countries the importance of institutional managers has increased, judgment of research performance has led to focusing on publishability, quantification of outputs, short-termism, ‘salami publishing’. Differences include higher stress levels and higher academic mobility in the UK. Overall, research evaluation has higher stakes in the UK than in the Netherlands.