At the Coffee House of Palazzo Colonna, theUniversitas Mercatorum – the University of the Italian Chambers of Commerce of the Multiversity Group – hosted the meeting entitled “Research Evaluation: State of the Art and Future Scenarios”, whose theme was The key role of evaluation of scientific research as a policy and management tool for research institutions and universities, for the recognition and reward of merit, and for transparency towards the taxpayer.
In our country, a great influence in the improvement of scientific productivity of the reference institutions, for the reduction of disparities between the universities of Northern and Southern Italy, the establishment of the National Agency for the Evaluation of the University and Research System (Anvur) and evaluation systems associated with incentive schemes, such as the Evaluation of Research Quality (Vqr) and the National Scientific Qualification (Asn). “Today, research systems play a fundamental role in supporting the competitiveness of countries and socio-economic development. The continuous improvement of these tools occurs not only through an increasing use of resources, but also thanks to the increase in productivity in the sector“, has explained Giovanni Cannata, magnificent rector of the Universitas Mercatorum, at the opening of the works. The rector appropriately underlined that “the development and growing application of new technologies such as machine learning and theartificial intelligencetogether with some important ongoing phenomena, such as the strong push towards open science and gender equality in research, as well as the never resolved debate on the most appropriate methodologies of evaluation, peer review or bibliometrics, reinvigorated by the recent establishment of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), open future scenarios for this activity, and its evaluation, all to be explored“.
The professor Antonio Uricchiopresident of Anvur, however, highlighted that his institute, with tools such as the Vqr exercises, has contributed to defining and improving “a culture of quality and evaluation that has led to growth overall scientific production of researchers“. For universities and research institutions, the Evaluation of Research Quality, in fact, “it's an amazing opportunity to promote internal policies which promote the appreciation of scientific production and the impact it can have on society“. John AbrahamFull Professor of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at the Universitas Mercatorum and President of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI), however, wanted to emphasize the importance of the conference, which created a meeting point between “there science of evaluation” and users. The dialogue and exchange of know-how that have come together in a flow of extraordinary importance, to consolidate the certainty of the importance of research evaluation as an increasingly central element for supporting innovation and progress scientific.
In addition to the illustrious experts already mentioned, among others also attended the meeting Emanuela RealeCo-Editor-in-Chief of the journal “Research Evaluation”; Alesia ZuccalàProfessor at the Department of Communication at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Dag AksnesProfessor at the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU), Norway; Stefano LaportaPresident of ISPRA; Raffaello BronziniHead of the Coordination Unit of Analysis, Study and Research Activities of the MUR.