Unlock ways to share data on peer review
Peer review is the defining feature of scholarly communication. In a 2018 survey of more than 11, 000 researchers, 98% said that they considered peer review important or extremely important for ensuring the quality and integrity of scholarly communication.
How do journals of different rank instruct peer reviewers? Reviewer guidelines in the field of management
Current knowledge on peer review consists of general formulations of its goals and micro level accounts of its practice, while journals’ attempts to guide and shape peer review have hardly been investigated so far. This article addresses this gap by studying the content of the reviewer guidelines (RG) of 46 journals in the field of management, as editors may use guidelines to nudge reviewers considering all relevant criteria, properly, and consistently with the needs of the journal. The analysis reveals remarkable differences between the instructions for reviewers of journals of different rank. Average and low rank journals mostly use evaluation forms, they emphasize the empirical contribut…
How do university systems' features affect academic inbreeding?: Career rules and language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain
Studies on academic inbreeding have mostly focused on institutional inbreeding and its negative effects, whereas little research has explored its causes. We identify current explanations of the macro‐, meso‐ and micro‐level factors that sustain academic inbreeding as well as research gaps. We address a main research gap regarding what macro‐level factors contribute to academic inbreeding, by analysing systems’ norms and rules regulating access to senior academic positions and teaching language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, the largest public university systems of the European Union. The analysis reveals that career rules designed to guarantee quality may have unintended …
Does reviewing experience reduce disagreement in proposals evaluation? Insights from Marie Skłodowska-Curie and COST Actions
Abstract We have limited understanding of why reviewers tend to strongly disagree when scoring the same research proposal. Thus far, research that explored disagreement has focused on the characteristics of the proposal or the applicants, while ignoring the characteristics of the reviewers themselves. This article aims to address this gap by exploring which reviewer characteristics most affect disagreement among reviewers. We present hypotheses regarding the effect of a reviewer’s level of experience in evaluating research proposals for a specific granting scheme, that is, scheme reviewing experience. We test our hypotheses by studying two of the most important research funding programmes i…
No road is long with good company. What factors affect Ph.D. student’s satisfaction with their supervisor?
PurposeHow frequently may be advisable for a supervisor to meet a PhD student? Are PhD students more satisfied if supervised by someone of the same gender, nationality or with common research interests? Thus far, we lack quantitative evidence regarding similar crucial aspects of managing PhD supervision. The goal of this study is hence to investigate what factors affect Ph.D. students' satisfaction about the professional and personal relationships with their supervisors.Design/methodology/approachWe focus on the characteristics of the interactions between the student and the supervisor, controlling for other important factors, namely, the supervisor's and student's traits, and the character…
Exploring the impact of COST Actions on scientific collaboration
The goal of this study was to explore the effects of participating in a Cost Action on the level of scientific collaboration. The results show on average a remarkable increase of co-publications between an Action’s active members, including interdisciplinary publications, and an increased involvement of scientists from peripheral countries (i.e., inclusive target countries), early career researchers, and women. The impact of active participation in an Action is not limited to the period of the project, but it persists also after its conclusion. The increase in collaborative publications does not come at the expense of non-collaborative publications, which points out to a net positive …
Framework and operationalisation challenges for quantitative comparative research in higher education
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Predictors of applying for and winning an ERC Proof-of-Concept grant: An automated machine learning model
Research often fails to be translated into applications because of lack of financial support. The Proof of Concept (PoC) funding scheme from the European Research Council (ERC) supports the early stages of the valorization process of the research conducted by its grantees. This article explores the factors that predict who will apply for ERC grants and which grant proposals will prove successful. By combining information from two datasets of 10,074 ERC grants (representing 8361 individual grantees) and 2186 PoC proposals, and using automated machine learning, we can identify the main predictors of the propensity to apply and to win. Doing so fills a void in the literature on likelihood to a…
How satisfied are international students? The role of town, gown and motivations
A growing literature addresses the experiences of international students in higher education. However, limited attention has been paid to how satisfied international students are with their educati...