Dear All,
Following Bill's quotation, colleagues might like to see the full text
of the letter from ten journal editors in the field of the history of
science, technology & medicine. I didn't put it in the earlier e-mails
(though it is referred to there) for reasons of length. But I think it
does put the case very clearly.
Regards
Martin
--
Professor Martin Durrell
German Studies, SLLC
University of Manchester
MANCHESTER, M13 9PL
Journals under Threat: A Joint Response from HSTM Editors
We live in an age of metrics. All around us, things are being
standardized, quantified, measured. Scholars concerned with the work of
science and technology must regard this as a fascinating and crucial
practical, cultural and intellectual phenomenon. Analysis of the roots
and meaning of metrics and metrology has been a preoccupation of much of
the best work in our field for the past quarter century at least. As
practitioners of the interconnected disciplines that make up the field
of science studies we understand how significant, contingent and
uncertain can be the process of rendering nature and society in grades,
classes and numbers. We now confront a situation in which our own
research work is being subjected to putatively precise accountancy by
arbitrary and unaccountable agencies. Some may already be aware of the
proposed European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH), an
initiative originating with the European Science Foundation. The ERIH is
an attempt to grade journals in the humanities – including “history and
philosophy of science”. The initiative proposes a league table of
academic journals, with premier, second and third divisions. According
to the European Science Foundation, ERIH “aims initially to identify,
and gain more visibility for, top-quality European Humanities research
published in academic journals in, potentially, all European languages”.
It is hoped “that ERIH will form the backbone of a fully-fledged
research information system for the Humanities”. What is meant, however,
is that ERIH will provide funding bodies and other agencies in Europe
and elsewhere with an allegedly exact measure of research quality. In
short, if research is published in a premier league journal it will be
recognized as first rate; if it appears somewhere in the lower
divisions, it will be rated (and not funded) accordingly.
This initiative is entirely defective in conception and execution.
Consider the major issues of accountability and transparency. The
process of producing the graded list of journals in science studies was
overseen by a committee of four (the membership is currently listed at
http://www.esf.org/research-areas/humanities/research-infrastructures-including-erih/erih-governance-and-panels/erih-expert-panels.html).
This committee cannot be considered representative. It was not selected
in consultation with any of the various disciplinary organizations that
currently represent our field such as BSHS, HSS, PSA, SHoT or SSSS. Only
in June 2008 were journal editors belatedly informed of the process and
its relevant criteria or asked to provide any information regarding
their publications. No indication has been given of the means through
which the list was compiled; nor how it might be maintained in the future.
The ERIH depends on a fundamental misunderstanding of conduct and
publication of research in our field, and in the humanities in general.
Journals’ quality cannot be separated from their contents and their
review processes. Great research may be published anywhere and in any
language. Truly ground-breaking work may be more likely to appear from
marginal, dissident or unexpected sources, rather than from a
well-established and entrenched mainstream. Our journals are various,
heterogeneous and distinct. Some are aimed at a broad, general and
international readership, others are more specialized in their content
and implied audience. Their scope and readership say nothing about the
quality of their intellectual content. The ERIH, on the other hand,
confuses internationality with quality in a way that is particularly
prejudicial to specialist and non-English language journals. In a recent
report, the British Academy, with judicious understatement, concludes
that “the European Reference Index for the Humanities as presently
conceived does not represent a reliable way in which metrics of
peer-reviewed publications can be constructed.” Such exercises as ERIH
can become self-fulfilling prophecies. If such measures as ERIH are
adopted as metrics by funding and other agencies, then many in our field
will conclude that they have little choice other than to limit their
publications to journals in the premier division. We will sustain fewer
journals, much less diversity and impoverish our discipline.
Along with many others in our field, this Journal has concluded that we
want no part of this illegitimate and misguided exercise. This joint
Editorial is being published in journals across the fields of history of
science and science studies as an expression of our collective dissent
and our refusal to allow our field to be managed and appraised in this
fashion. We have asked the compilers of the ERIH to remove our journals’
titles from their lists.
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