Contradicting incentives for research collaboration
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Contradicting incentives for research collaboration. / Wien, Charlotte; Dorch, Bertil F.; Larsen, Asger Væring.
I: Scientometrics, Bind 112, Nr. 2, 2017, s. 903-915.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Contradicting incentives for research collaboration
AU - Wien, Charlotte
AU - Dorch, Bertil F.
AU - Larsen, Asger Væring
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2017, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - This study describes the Danish publication award system (BFI), investigates whether its built-in incentives have had an effect on publication behavior at the University of Southern Denmark, and discusses the possible future implications on researcher incentives should universities wish to measure BFI on the individual level. We analyzed publication data from the university CRIS system (Pure) and from SciVal. Several studies indicate that co-authored scholarly journal articles attract more citations than single author articles. The reason for this are not clear, however, research collaboration across institutions and countries is commonly accepted in the research community and among university managements as one way of increasing the researcher’s and institution’s reputation and impact. The BFI system is designed to award scholarly publication activity at Danish universities, especially publication in international journals of high status. However, we find that the built-in incentives leave the researcher and his or her institution with a dilemma: If the researchers optimize their performance by forming author groups with external collaborators, the optimal way of doing so for the researchers is not the optimal way seen from the perspective of the university. Our analysis shows that the typical article has 6.5 authors, two of which are internal, and that this has remained stable since the introduction of the BFI. However, there is variation across the disciplines. While ‘the Arts and Humanities’ and ‘the Social Sciences’ seem to compose author groups in a way which does not optimize the performance of the institution, both ‘Health’ and ‘the Natural Sciences’ seem to optimize according to criteria other than those specified in the BFI.
AB - This study describes the Danish publication award system (BFI), investigates whether its built-in incentives have had an effect on publication behavior at the University of Southern Denmark, and discusses the possible future implications on researcher incentives should universities wish to measure BFI on the individual level. We analyzed publication data from the university CRIS system (Pure) and from SciVal. Several studies indicate that co-authored scholarly journal articles attract more citations than single author articles. The reason for this are not clear, however, research collaboration across institutions and countries is commonly accepted in the research community and among university managements as one way of increasing the researcher’s and institution’s reputation and impact. The BFI system is designed to award scholarly publication activity at Danish universities, especially publication in international journals of high status. However, we find that the built-in incentives leave the researcher and his or her institution with a dilemma: If the researchers optimize their performance by forming author groups with external collaborators, the optimal way of doing so for the researchers is not the optimal way seen from the perspective of the university. Our analysis shows that the typical article has 6.5 authors, two of which are internal, and that this has remained stable since the introduction of the BFI. However, there is variation across the disciplines. While ‘the Arts and Humanities’ and ‘the Social Sciences’ seem to compose author groups in a way which does not optimize the performance of the institution, both ‘Health’ and ‘the Natural Sciences’ seem to optimize according to criteria other than those specified in the BFI.
KW - Case study
KW - Denmark
KW - Incentives effects
KW - Reward systems
U2 - 10.1007/s11192-017-2412-0
DO - 10.1007/s11192-017-2412-0
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85019709403
VL - 112
SP - 903
EP - 915
JO - Scientometrics
JF - Scientometrics
SN - 0138-9130
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 403565718