In the long term, this benefits a wide-ranging university. In the short term, the collegial commitment takes time from our own research, but the alternative is that others get to decide for us within the structure of a silo organisation.
When asked about collegial assignments: Do the university a favour by saying yes and using that trust committedly. We all need to participate in the collegial gathering of the best arguments possible before decisions. In the long run, we will otherwise get another non-autonomous organisation that we do not control ourselves and which risks being dominated by special interests.
Collegiality goes hand in hand with peer review and how we evaluate and measure research quality in the best possible way. Peer review, like collegial assignments, requires a great deal of commitment and detachment. This is a desirable but often elusive combination. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, has graphically described that:
“peer review to the public is portrayed as a quasisacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller, but we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong”
Horton’s formulations may seem provocative, but perhaps we should consider the relevance, and also in the Lancet’s field of publication. It could be about different types of apparent or less apparent conflicts of interest, results challenging norms within a discipline that are defended by its leaders, or that hard selling news may be more significant than zero-results (Ref 1 2 3).
I would argue that accurately conducted, field-standardised bibliometrics is a more objective way of measuring research outcomes, where results should be evaluated only after several years of observation. Acceptance of innovative research results can take decades – see the logarithmic growth curve for the most highly cited articles. The delay in the degree of citation is striking. The delicate art of reviewing research quality is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, where bibliometrics, impact factors and external reviews are the complementary and sometimes ill-fitting puzzle pieces, even without measuring the impact of utilisation and innovation.
Finally, feel free to use our research infrastructures that you will find described via these two links:
Research infrastructures at Medfarm
Research infrastructure at Uppsala University
Your Deputy Dean for Research Infrastructure