Assessing Research Quality at Individual Level.
The case of BI Norwegian Business School
EIASM Conference, CBS, 2 October 2013
Ulf H. Olsson, Senior Vice President Research and Academic Resources,
BI Norwegian Business School
1
BI Norwegian Business School
• A private, not-for-profit foundation
• The largest provider of education to
the business and industry sector in
Norway
• One of Europe’s largest business
school with 20 000 students
• EQUIS accredited in 1999,
reaccredited in 2005 and 2010
• In the process of being accredited by
AMBA and AACSB
2
BI: Key characteristics and positioning
• Funded by tuition fee, in a market
dominated by state funded schools
and universities
• Large scale bachelor programmes –
with extensive programme
differentiation
• Differentiated MSc-programmes
• PhD programme with six
specialisations
• EMBA-programmes
• Large scale post-experience, part
time management programmes
3
Eight departments for R&D
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Accounting, Auditing and Law
Communication, Culture and Languages
Economics
Financial Economics
Innovation and Economic Organisation
Leadership and Organisational Behaviour
Marketing
Strategy and Logistics
4
Assessment of faculty performance
An annual assessment of performance and results
takes place as the background for individual salary
adjustments
Both R&D, teaching and ‘citizenship duties’ are
included in this assessment
The Heads of Department make this assessment of
their staff on the basis of agreed criteria
5
Assessment of R&D performance is
based on the following criteria:
• The publishing of research-based monographs and
scientific articles in journals with peer review.
• Participation with documented contributions at
scientific conferences with peer review.
• Acquisition of and academic responsibility for
research projects involving several members of the
academic staff contributing directly to the education
of doctoral candidates, and with separate funding.
• Supervision of doctoral candidates.
• Dissemination of results from research
6
Assessment of R&D performance
Each faculty member has to provide information on their
achievements re the criteria on R&D performance. Until
now this has been done by asking each faculty member to
fill in an Annual Report
Re the criteria «publishing of research-based monographs
and scientific articles in journals with peer review» we are
supported by the Norwegian register of scientific journals,
series and publishers
This register contains information on scientific output from
all faculty at Norwegian higher education institutions (HEIs)
7
National system for registration of
scientific output
The Norwegian register of scientific journals, series and
publishers was established in connection with the introduction
of a performance based model for government funding of
research for HEIs
[Only a small part (on average 2 per cent) of the government funding of HEIs
are based on performance re scientific output]
The model is based on complete registration of academic
publishing from Norwegian HEIs
The model attributes publication points to three types of
scientific publications at two quality levels:
8
Three types of scientific publications
The following types of publications give publication
points:
• Research monographs
• Articles in periodicals or series
• Articles in anthologies
9
Two-tiered quality classification of
publication channels
To sustain the quality of Norwegian scholarly
publications, the publication channels are divided in
two quality levels. The highest quality level (level 2)
consists of the publication channels regarded as the
leading and most prestigious in their field by the
scientists themselves. Level 2 should cover
approximately 20 per cent of the publications in its
discipline(s) world wide
10
Publication points - weighting
Publication type
Research monograph
Article in periodicals or series
Article in anthologies
Channels at Channels at
(the normal) (the high)
level 1
level 2
5 pp
8 pp
1 pp
3 pp
0,7 pp
1 pp
11
Attributing publication points
The publication points are apportioned according to the
number of authors contributing to the publication
An example: An article at level 2 gives 3 publication points. If
this article is co-authored each author earns 3/n publication
points where n is the number of authors
The publication points are given to publications at the level of
institutions, not to the authors
[For 2013 each publication point gave NOK 32 000 (approx € 4 000) in
government funding. BI faculty obtained a total of 220 publication points
and BI thus received 7 MNOK (approx € 880 000) based on scientific
publishing]
12
Expectance on R&D performace (1)
BI uses this publication point system to set
minimum targets for R&D performance for
faculty:
Faculty in scientific positions shall on
average at least obtain 1 publication point per
year measured over a period of 3 years
13
Expectance on R&D performace (2)
Faculty in scientific positions who after a period of three years
are not able to document satisfactory research and researchrelated work without any special reasons, shall be instructed
by the Senior Vice President to take on work responsibilities
corresponding to a pedagogical position¹ until they again are
able to document a satisfactory performance or submit
concrete and realizable plans for their research activities
¹ Number of teaching hours per calendar year:
– Faculty in scientific positions:
140 hours
– Faculty in pedagogical positions: 260 hours
14
Remuneration of faculty for scientific output (1)
• In addition to permanent salary adjustments BI also
have a system for individual remuneration for scientific
output
• This system is based on the aforementioned national
system – with some adjustments
15
Remuneration of faculty for scientific output (2)
We adjust the national system in the following way:
 By working with others we think both quantity and quality of research will
prosper. In order to stimulate co-authorship we therefore multiply the
number of publication points for a publication with 1,5 before dividing with
the number of authors
 In order to stimulate quality:
– 5 publication points for articles at level 2 (in the national system: 3)
– Articles in a selected number of journals are given 20 publication
points. These journals are of special strategic importance for BI and/or
of a special high quality
16
Remuneration of faculty for scientific output (3)
The BI President decides each year the amount of money for each
publication point.
For 2012 each publication point was awarded NOK 8 000 (approx. €
1000)
Thus if a faculty member was a single author of an article in a journal
of special strategic importance for BI (s)he would earn NOK 160 000
(approx € 20 000).
17
Why this generous remuneration of faculty for
scientific output?
We do not think that this remuneration system functions as an
accurate incentive for more research or higher quality of the research
Faculty publish in order to move the knowledge frontier and to build
an international academic reputation.
At BI we have generous remuneration re teaching above mandatory
teaching hours
The remuneration of research output is meant to balance the
emphasis on teaching at BI
18
Remuneration of faculty for scientific output (4)
We have not conducted a formal evaluation of the scheme for
remuneration of scientific output
Our impression is though that faculty appreciate this scheme
For many faculty members the letter from our President where he is
thanking for the valuable contribution to the academic profile of BI
and encourages to «keep up the good work» is more important than
the remuneration itself
19