Monitoring and assessment of scientific performance: foreign experience and Russian practice

The article provides the analysis of approaches to monitoring and assessment of scientific organizations in the Russian Federation and abroad. It describes the experience in evaluating performance of scientific organizations and scientists in the countries of the European Union, U.S. and China. The analysis of foreign experience has shown that currently the reform of the approaches to the scientific performance assessment is actively held, which is based on: the transition from the quantitative analysis of scientometric indicators to the qualitative evaluation of R&D; assessing the social effect of R&D; the combination of internal and external audit of scientific performance; the transition to the budgeting system based on accounting the results of the activity. Special attention is paid to the diagnostic system of implementation of the so-called "One-three-five" principle of state science and technology policy which is used under the system of evaluating the scientific performance in China. The article identifies the problems of the Russian system of monitoring and evaluation of scientific performance, which are mostly due to the methodological flaws of collecting and analyzing data on the performance of scientific organizations, the incoherence of the systems of expert and scientometric evaluation and the increasing bureaucratic burden on the organizations. It concludes that for developing the system of scientific performance evaluation in Russia it is necessary to achieve the following objectives: to define the place and role of information systems in the public administration of science and technology policy, create a system of target setting for the research organizations to develop an effective mechanism for collecting data on scientific activity. The authors believe that the compulsory element of the assessment system should be an expert examination based on quantitative indicators.