1.3.4 Performance criteria and assessment
A. Background & Definitions
EQIPD Quality System relies on and should become part of the overall organizational quality culture.
An essential element of the organizational quality culture is the performance criteria and assessment aligned with the overall quality objectives.
Non-transparent or unfair performance assessment practices are often an impactful source of bias-generating pressure.
The performance of researchers is often evaluated using measures like the Impact Factor of the journals in which a researcher published or with the H-index (Wiki article). Lately, these measures for performance do not seem to be adequate anymore and it became clear, that other measures are needed to describe the performance of researchers and assess their output. Therefore, it is important to carefully judge the measures with which the performance is assessed for example during the hiring process, annual evaluation or awards.
B. Guidance & Expectations
EQIPD does not expect any formal documents or analyses to be conducted. However, it is highly desirable that the Process Owner reviews the performance assessment practices and criteria and, if necessary, aligns them with the quality objectives:
Is there a transparent description of performance criteria (and, if so, corresponding section of the Dossier may be used to store relevant documents or links to such documents) Do the main criteria include adherence to Open Science and Good Research Practive principles? Does quantity of the research output (experiments, papers) have any direct impact on performance assessment? Is there a risk that expectations towards performance can generate pressure leading to a potential bias (e.g. a certain method should never fail)?
PLEASE DO NOT FORGET
To communicate the research team members the expectations and be transparent about the procedure for perfomance assessment
C. Resources
Assessing scientists for hiring, promotion, and tenure PLOS Biology 2018 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2004089
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