Pathways of Isomorphism: University Strategies in a Quest for Research Quality

• In Event: STS Perspectives on Isomorphism in National Science and Innovation Policies

Abstract

Increasingly universities have been ‘encouraging’ academics to focus their publication efforts on certain journals considered to be leading in their respective fields. These, as well as the outside impetus necessary to affect publication strategies, vary greatly between research fields; e.g. it requires a higher level of coercion to redirect the publication choices of scholars in the social scientists than scientists in research fields in physics. Still, the fact that many universities across national research spaces have adopted, or are in the process of adopting, such strategies remains.

While these processes are not difficult to explain in research spaces characterised by research evaluation regimes that are coercive and steering (like the one that has taken hold in the UK) or coercive and enabling (like the one in the Netherlands), comprehension is not straightforward in cases where the pressure universities place on their academics to publish in particular journals is mis-aligned with the demands of the research space within which these organisations operate.

The question I will be addressing in this paper is the following: what are the ‘mechanisms’ or ‘pathways’ for this isomorphism in university strategies in their quest for research quality? Ongoing, and completed, research on issues around research quality, research evaluation regimes and the institutionalisation of an European research space, will be used to inform this interrogation of normative and mimetic ‘mechanisms’.

Author

• Maria Nedeva, University of Manchester