Gustaf Nelhans

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) is increasingly promoted in current science policy. It is expected to address complex societal issues while both being democratically just and challenging deep-seated epistemological assumptions. The rising emphasis on accountability and evaluation in science has led to a growing literature on TDR evaluation over the last 15 years. Existing reviews of this literature often aim to synthesize results into general overarching evaluation frameworks. However, these reviews have paid limited attention to the normative assumptions embedded within evaluation criteria. This risks smoothing over deep-seated conflicts regarding values and goals in TDR. In this paper, we qualitatively analyse a systematically identified corpus of 58 peer-reviewed articles to uncover the underlying normative assumptions that are prominent in the TDR evaluation literature. We identify four distinct discourses: Justification, providing explanation and motivation for TDR; Integration, focusing on the epistemological dimension of TDR; Impact, aiming to better understand how TDR leads to societal effects; and Metrics, indicators of TDR effects. We argue that the dominance of the Impact discourse risks overlooking the epistemological ambitions of TDR, while the consensus-oriented Integration discourse risks smoothing over pluralism and minimizing heterodox views among participants. Both funders and evaluators of TDR must be aware of and reflect on the implications of their normative assumptions for the specific contexts in which they operate. Our results can serve as a conceptual tool that helps navigate the complexities and assumptions of TDR evaluation.

Introduction. This paper analyses the presence of the journal Information Research in traditional citation databases, such as Web of Science, as well as in new open sources like OpenAlex; and services tracking policy and technological impact, such as SciVal and Overton. Method. We analyse the visibility of the journal across sources. With the limitations of representation in the different sources we proceed to study the impact of the journal in the scholarly community, as well as in society, by looking at how Information Research papers are situated in the scholarly world and how they are cited in patents and policy papers. Finally, we look at the openness of the journal as seen through the data sources. Results. Our results show that Information Research has made quite a journey. It has found a place in the scholarly universe: authors from institutions from around the world publish there and other prestigious journals cite the content. The content coverage in the perused data sources could be improved, as can metadata, for example markup of article types. Conclusions. Whilst the journal has been openly available on the Internet throughout its history, this is not well reflected in the data sources. This is something that the new home, Publicera.kb.se, might help with. Larger platforms can help individual journals fulfil the data standards needed to be properly indexed in the large data sources.

This chapter introduces quantitative research practices within informetrics and explores various indicators used in the field. Historical perspectives on scientometrics, bibliometrics, and informetrics are discussed, referencing prior publications and handbooks. Challenges in selecting appropriate indicators and the suitability of using a single metric for cross-disciplinary comparisons are highlighted. Additionally, the chapter introduces power laws and statistical laws that characterise measurements of information. Indicators such as publications, citations, and journal metrics are then explored. Limitations and biases in relying solely on specific metrics are emphasised, promoting a broader evaluation perspective. A review of research papers showcases the diversity of data sources, methods, indicators, and research challenges within the field. The chapter ends with a discussion of relevant data, acknowledging the challenges related to data access that may limit the effectiveness of these tools in certain contexts, and concludes by advocating for a contextual approach beyond relying solely on indicators.

Disciplines display field-specific ways of valuing research contributions, and these different ‘styles of valuation’ influence how academic careers are assessed and formed. Yet, differences in how research is evaluated are also prevalent between different levels of assessment: collegial and organizational. Consequently, we employ a multifaceted two-dimensional approach for studying styles of valuation where both horizontal (across domains) and vertical (organization levels) variations in assessment practices are examined. For this purpose, we make use of 16 faculty guidelines and 112 referee reports concerning candidates for becoming ‘docent’ (Habilitation) from four broad domains: the humanities, the social sciences, medicine and the natural sciences (including technology). By inductively identifying five broad dimensions used when assessing publication merits: (1) Attribution of work, (2) Qualities of content, (3) Publication channel, (4) Publication impact, and (5) Publication volume we can distinguish specific styles of valuation for each of our four domains. Moreover, by extending the analysis to an organizational level we detect opposing ways in which the evaluations are justified—what we call ‘disharmonic styles of valuation’. Thus, when developing insights on ‘quality understandings’—and their operationalization through styles of valuation—in academia we need to put less emphasis on their origins and rather focus on how they come to travel between and co-exist within specific evaluative contexts.

Syftet med denna artikel är att presentera en övergripande bibliometrisk utforskning och analys av konversationer inom lärarutbildningsforskning och hur denna komplexa verksamhet organiserar sig i form av forskningsproblem, kunskapsintressen och intellektuella traditioner. Analyserna behandlar de noder och nätverk som formas av länkar mellan publikationer genom konversationer i forskarsamhället. I fokus står svensk lärarutbildningsforskning och hur denna länkas till internationell forskning inom området. Undersökningarna bygger på de resurser som citeringsdatabasen Web of Science och analysverktyget VOSviewer erbjuder. Vi identifierade 23 866 publikationer totalt, varav 358 hade anknytning till Sverige. En omfattande expansion av publikationer har skett under senare år – såväl inom svensk som internationell lärarutbildningsforskning – med en påtaglig anglo-saxisk dominans inom området. Explorativa klusteranalyser utifrån länkar mellan publikationer gav olika forskningsfronter med skilda problem och ansatser som behandlades i skilda nätverk. Vi kunde också identifiera särskilda intellektuella traditioner och förgrundsfigurer i olika nätverk. Svensk och internationell forskning uppvisade här åtskilliga likheter i sin organisering. Våra studier visar på ett fragmenterat forskningsfält positionerat i olika sammanhang och kunskapsintressen. Forskarsamhället behöver reflektera över skillnader i inriktning och lokalisering av forskningsproblem inom fältet samt analysera varför dessa uppstår liksom innebörder av att lärarutbildning förflyttas mellan olika forskningsfronter och traditioner.

This chapter explores indirect, text-based knowledge brokering through a study of Swedish governmental reports, known asStatens offentliga utredningar(SOUs). To this end, we endeavor to gauge the impact of knowledge uptake in their sources as displayed in their reference lists. Because SOUs are the outcome of commissions, we seek to position this feature of Swedish policymaking culture as an overlooked yet vital enabling condition for productive science–policy interaction where scholars and their knowledge can matter. However, doing so effectively requires a better understanding of the characteristics of impactful knowledge objects and the dynamics required to make them effective. Our analysis shows that the lion’s share of the references cited in the SOUs studied can be classified as gray literature and are published in Swedish. This suggests that scholars wanting to matter in a policy context may consider other routes besides the predominating genre of the peer-reviewed journal article in an English-language journal. Further implications of these findings are discussed vis-à-vis recent conceptualizations of agency in knowledge brokering as a lens through which to view collaborative impact in the future.

This chapter explores the alignment between the stated intention of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to matter and the assessment of individuals to matter. To achieve this aim, HEIs collaboration strategies are compared with the criteria for the guidance for merits regarding docentship. Our analysis reveals a notable disparity: the societal collaboration visions outlined in strategies were rarely reflected in promotion guidelines. There is a substantial degree of variability in how these guidelines address collaboration merits. Despite the prevalence of ambitious strategies among HEIs, only a minority align these aspirations with guidelines that encompass the breadth and depth required for effective, high-quality collaboration.

We study terrorism’s shaping of STEM research through the development within engineering research of a ‘terrorismmindedness’, i.e. terrorist threat domestication through integration in research practice. This is done by a distant reading of how research in the engineering sciences is increasingly addressing terrorism-related topics. By means of an in-depth bibliometric analysis of some 3.000 terrorism-related scientific articles published 1989–2022, we construct within the subject area ‘Engineering’ in Web of Science its research subfield ‘Terrorism Related Engineering Research’. The publications are analysed by bibliometric mapping, co-occurrence text measures and ‘algorithmic historiography’ using the HistCite tool. Papers cited together are mapped using VOSviewer to identify concepts and the results are clustered according to topicality, revealing the various terrorism-related research interests among engineering scientists.

This chapter explores indirect, text-based knowledge brokering through a study of Swedish governmental reports, known as Statens offentliga utredningar (SOUs). To this end, we endeavor to gauge impact as knowledge uptake in their sources as displayed in their reference lists. Because SOUs are the outcome of commissions, we seek to position this feature of Swedish policymaking culture as an overlooked yet vital enabling condition for productive science–policy interaction where scholars and their knowledge can matter. However, doing so effectively requires a better understanding of the characteristics of impactful knowledge objects and the dynamics required to make them effective. Our analysis shows that the lion’s share of the references cited in the SOUs studied can be classified as gray literature and are published in Swedish. This suggests that scholars wanting to matter in a policy context may consider other routes besides the predominating genre of the peer-reviewed journal article in an English-language journal. Further implications of these findings are discussed vis-à-vis recent conceptualizations of agency in knowledge brokering as a lens through which to view collaborative impact in the future.