From values towards metrics: on quantitative criteria in the assessments of scientific production

• Grant number: 11/10758-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: February 01, 2012
• End date: July 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Renato Rodrigues Kinouchi
• Grantee: Renato Rodrigues Kinouchi
• Host Investigator: José Luís de Oliveira Garcia
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Naturais e Humanas (CCNH). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
• Associated research grant: 07/53867-0 - Origins and significance of technoscience: on relations among science, technology and society, AP.TEM

Abstract

This project aims to investigate the role of cognitive, social and economic values in the evaluation of science and technology productions. Firstly, we intend to establish a theoretical framework for clarifying the relations between the different types of values - cognitive, social and economic - in the context of scientific activity. In accordance, we will follow José L. Garcia's appreciation of the contributions of the philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel, whose book "The philosophy of Money" contains sophisticated, although forgotten, ideas about the role of science and technology in industrial societies. In the sequence, we will discuss the current policies of assessments of researcher's productivity, since most of them based on quantitative criteria. Finally, we propose the critical task of performing a conversion of metric into values; that is, by analyzing the metrics adopted in the quantitative evaluations, we will discuss the values that inform them. (AU)