Alexander D Rushforth
Biographic Data
| ID | 238000 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexander D Rushforth |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexander D |
| FAMILY NAME | Rushforth |
| SIGNATURE | RUSHFORTH A D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leiden University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3352-943X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 55 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Advancing open science through research assessment reform? Content analysis of CoARA action plans
Research assessment reform and open science are frequently presented as aligned reform movements within science, with assessment reform expected to incentivize open science practices. However, empirical evidence of this integration remains limited. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of open science terminology in action plans from Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) signatories—institutions publicly committed to reformin…
Research Assessment Reform as Collective Action Problem
The rise of managerial logics in research policy and universities in many countries over the past decades, has met with concerns and criticisms about dysfunctional effects of research evaluation and indicator regimes. Recently, concerted trans-national and national reform efforts have emerged seeking collective action to redress this complex, multi-level issue. For some actors in science systems, however, research assessment reform threatens the …
Letter
The rise of responsible metrics as a professional reform movement
Recent years have seen a rise in awareness around “responsible metrics” and calls for research assessment reforms internationally. Yet within the field of quantitative science studies and in research policy contexts, concerns about the limitations of evaluative bibliometrics are almost as old as the tools themselves. Given that many of the concerns articulated in recent reform movements go back decades, why has momentum for change grown only in t…
Long Covid - The illness narratives
Persistent symptoms after Covid-19
Temporality in Academic Evaluation
This paper builds on emerging concerns with how temporality and spatiality unfold in, and order, academic evaluation practices. We unpack how the notion of ‘trajectory’ – a simultaneously prospective and retrospective narrative device permeating contemporary academic evaluation discourses – is mobilized within a particular evaluation site. Materials for our study are drawn from reports commissioned by Swedish universities when hiring for new prof…
Portfolios of Worth
How are "interesting" research problems identified and made durable by academic researchers, particularly in situations defined by multiple evaluation principles? Building on two case studies of research groups working on rare diseases in academic biomedicine, we explore how group leaders arrange their groups to encompass research problems that latch onto distinct evaluation principles by dividing and combining work into "basic-oriented" and "cli…
Evaluation practices and effects of indicator use—a literature review
This review of the international literature on evaluation systems, evaluation practices, and metrics (mis)uses was written as part of a larger review commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to inform their independent assessment of the role of metrics in research evaluation (2014–5). The literature on evaluation systems, practices, and effects of indicator uses is extremely heterogeneous: it comprises hundreds of …
What’s in a slogan? Translational science and the rhetorical work of cancer researchers in a UK university
Translational science is currently proving a highly influential term in framing how biomedical research is promoted and evaluated in a great number of countries. Although there has been a steady trickle of scholarly literature on the topic, the performative uses effects of the term in practices of academic researchers has been under-researched. Drawing on interviews with members of a cancer laboratory and research institute in a UK research unive…
Accounting for Impact? The Journal Impact Factor and the Making of Biomedical Research in the Netherlands
The range and types of performance metrics has recently proliferated in academic settings, with bibliometric indicators being particularly visible examples. One field that has traditionally been hospitable towards such indicators is biomedicine. Here the relative merits of bibliometrics are widely discussed, with debates often portraying them as heroes or villains. Despite a plethora of controversies, one of the most widely used indicators in thi…
Meeting pragmatism halfway
Pragmatic clinical trials ( PCT s) are today an increasingly prominent means of measuring the ‘effectiveness’ of healthcare interventions in ‘real world’ clinical settings, in order to produce evidence on which to base regulatory and clinical decision‐making. Although several sociological studies have shown persuasively how PCT s are co‐constructed within particular healthcare systems in which they are based, they have tended to focus on relative…
The Theatre of Scientific Advice
Long Covid - The illness narratives
Accounting for Impact? The Journal Impact Factor and the Making of Biomedical Research in the Netherlands
The range and types of performance metrics has recently proliferated in academic settings, with bibliometric indicators being particularly visible examples. One field that has traditionally been hospitable towards such indicators is biomedicine. Here the relative merits of bibliometrics are widely discussed, with debates often portraying them as heroes or villains. Despite a plethora of controversies, one of the most widely used indicators in thi…
Portfolios of Worth
How are "interesting" research problems identified and made durable by academic researchers, particularly in situations defined by multiple evaluation principles? Building on two case studies of research groups working on rare diseases in academic biomedicine, we explore how group leaders arrange their groups to encompass research problems that latch onto distinct evaluation principles by dividing and combining work into "basic-oriented" and "cli…
Meeting pragmatism halfway
Pragmatic clinical trials ( PCT s) are today an increasingly prominent means of measuring the ‘effectiveness’ of healthcare interventions in ‘real world’ clinical settings, in order to produce evidence on which to base regulatory and clinical decision‐making. Although several sociological studies have shown persuasively how PCT s are co‐constructed within particular healthcare systems in which they are based, they have tended to focus on relative…
The Theatre of Scientific Advice
Accounting for Impact? The Journal Impact Factor and the Making of Biomedical Research in the Netherlands
The range and types of performance metrics has recently proliferated in academic settings, with bibliometric indicators being particularly visible examples. One field that has traditionally been hospitable towards such indicators is biomedicine. Here the relative merits of bibliometrics are widely discussed, with debates often portraying them as heroes or villains. Despite a plethora of controversies, one of the most widely used indicators in thi…
Meeting pragmatism halfway
Pragmatic clinical trials ( PCT s) are today an increasingly prominent means of measuring the ‘effectiveness’ of healthcare interventions in ‘real world’ clinical settings, in order to produce evidence on which to base regulatory and clinical decision‐making. Although several sociological studies have shown persuasively how PCT s are co‐constructed within particular healthcare systems in which they are based, they have tended to focus on relative…
Evaluation practices and effects of indicator use—a literature review
This review of the international literature on evaluation systems, evaluation practices, and metrics (mis)uses was written as part of a larger review commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to inform their independent assessment of the role of metrics in research evaluation (2014–5). The literature on evaluation systems, practices, and effects of indicator uses is extremely heterogeneous: it comprises hundreds of …
What’s in a slogan? Translational science and the rhetorical work of cancer researchers in a UK university
Translational science is currently proving a highly influential term in framing how biomedical research is promoted and evaluated in a great number of countries. Although there has been a steady trickle of scholarly literature on the topic, the performative uses effects of the term in practices of academic researchers has been under-researched. Drawing on interviews with members of a cancer laboratory and research institute in a UK research unive…
Portfolios of Worth
How are "interesting" research problems identified and made durable by academic researchers, particularly in situations defined by multiple evaluation principles? Building on two case studies of research groups working on rare diseases in academic biomedicine, we explore how group leaders arrange their groups to encompass research problems that latch onto distinct evaluation principles by dividing and combining work into "basic-oriented" and "cli…
Persistent symptoms after Covid-19
Temporality in Academic Evaluation
This paper builds on emerging concerns with how temporality and spatiality unfold in, and order, academic evaluation practices. We unpack how the notion of ‘trajectory’ – a simultaneously prospective and retrospective narrative device permeating contemporary academic evaluation discourses – is mobilized within a particular evaluation site. Materials for our study are drawn from reports commissioned by Swedish universities when hiring for new prof…
Long Covid - The illness narratives
Letter
The rise of responsible metrics as a professional reform movement
Recent years have seen a rise in awareness around “responsible metrics” and calls for research assessment reforms internationally. Yet within the field of quantitative science studies and in research policy contexts, concerns about the limitations of evaluative bibliometrics are almost as old as the tools themselves. Given that many of the concerns articulated in recent reform movements go back decades, why has momentum for change grown only in t…
Research Assessment Reform as Collective Action Problem
The rise of managerial logics in research policy and universities in many countries over the past decades, has met with concerns and criticisms about dysfunctional effects of research evaluation and indicator regimes. Recently, concerted trans-national and national reform efforts have emerged seeking collective action to redress this complex, multi-level issue. For some actors in science systems, however, research assessment reform threatens the …
Advancing open science through research assessment reform? Content analysis of CoARA action plans
Research assessment reform and open science are frequently presented as aligned reform movements within science, with assessment reform expected to incentivize open science practices. However, empirical evidence of this integration remains limited. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of open science terminology in action plans from Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) signatories—institutions publicly committed to reformin…
Sociology (11 works) · Political science (8 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Engineering (3 works) · Engineering ethics (3 works) · Health care (3 works) · Library science (3 works)