Research Evaluation, Bibliometric Indicators and Impact on Knowledge Development

With increased globalization and international competition among research centers and universities, bibliometrics regained a new élan. As a matter of fact it became the most important criteria – sometimes the only one - used for the evaluation of scientific papers and thereby for the faculty’s classification and progression in the academic and research careers. Accreditation procedures and the building of international rankings reinforced this trend as well as the major role played by reference repertoires. This self-feeding and circular process deserves a deeper insight mostly because it generates important knowledge waste. This is so because non-English speaking scientific communities usually face meaningful obstacles to access to the abovementioned repertoires. And accordingly, their scientific papers risk becoming unknown or underutilized even though they develop matters and topics which are relevant for their authors’ societies. At the same time, progression in academic or research careers go in parallel with the reproduction and transmission of official knowledge and generally neglect alternative thinking. In this paper we shed light on these issues. After a brief literature review, we analyze the situation of a Portuguese higher education research institution under both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis which results confirm the above referred main trends.