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Evaluating big science: CERN's past performance and future prospects

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Abstract

After explaining the reasons why science policy-makers face a growing need for more rigorous forms of research evaluation, we outline an approach combining bibliometric and peer-evaluation data that has been developed at the Science Policy Research Unit in the course of a programme of studies of Big Science specialties. The paper describes the results obtained when this ‘method of converging partial indicators’ is applied to compared the past research performance of the accelerators at CERN — the joint European Laboratory for Particle Physics — with that of the world's other main accelerators. The paper concludes by demonstrating how, on the basis of an analysis of the factors that have structured research performance in the past, it is possible to arrive at a systematic set of conclusions about the future prospects for a major new research facility such as an accelerator.

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Notes and references

  1. D. de SOLLA PRICE, Philosophical Mechanism and Mechanical Philosophy: Some Notes Towards a Philosophy of Scientific Instruments,Annali del'Institutio e Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze, V (1980) 75–85. D. de SOLLA PRICE, Selaing Wax and String: A Philosophy of the Experimenter's Craft and its Role in the Genesis of High Technology, Sarton Lecture at the AAAS, May 1983. D. de SOLLA PRICE, The Science/Technology Relationship; The Craft of Experimental Science, and Policy for the Improvement of High Technology Innovation,Research Policy 13 (1984) 3–20.

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  4. For evidence on the exponential growth of science, see e.g., N. RESCHER,Scientific Progress, Blackwell, Oxford, 1978.

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  5. cf. J. IRVINE, B. R. MARTIN, C. H. G. OLDHAM,Research Evaluation in British Science: A SPRU Review, a report prepared for the French Ministry of Research and Industry by the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RF, U. K.

  6. The programme of research began in 1978 with a two-year study focusing on five British Big Science laboratories working in the areas of radio astronomy (see B. R. MARTIN and J. IRVINE, Assessing Basic Research: Some Partial Indicators of Scientific Progress in Radio Astronomy,Research Policy, 12 (1983) 61–90) optical astronomy (see J. IRVINE and B. R. MARTIN, Assessing Basic Research: The Case of the Isaac Newton Telescope,Social Studies of Science, 13 (1983) 49–86), and electron high-energy physics (see B. R. MARTIN and J. IRVINE, Internal Criteria for Scientific Choice: An Evaluation of Research in High-Energy Physics Using Electron Accelerators,Minerva, XIX (1981) 408–32). This was followed in 1981 by an evaluation of applied research (mechanical engineering and electronics) for a Norwegian Royal Commission (see M. SCHWARZ, J. IRVINE and B. R. MARTIN, with K. PAVITT and R. ROTHWELL, Government Support for Industrial Research: Lessons from a Study of Norway,R&D Management, 12 (1982) 155–67). The CERN project describeb here was carried out over a 15-month period between 1981 and 1982, this paper constituting a summary of the three articles listed in references 19, 20 and 27, below. Since then, the authors have undertaken evaluations of: (1) the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technology; (2). the steel-research programme of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC); the mechanisms used by policy-makers in Britain for evaluating past research performance (see reference 5, above); and (4) Britain's international standing in the fields of ocean currents and protein crystallography. We should like to record the fact that the late Professor de SOLLA PRICE played a central role in helping establish our work as a legitimate area of research, and we shall always be indebted to him for his crucial early interest and enthusiasm.

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  7. See also J. IRVINE, B. R. MARTIN, What Direction for Basic Scientific Research? in: M. GIBBONS, P. GUMMET, B. M. UDGAONKAR (Eds),Science and Technology Policy in the 1980s and Beyond, Longman, Harlow, 1984, 67–98.

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  8. cf..

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  9. For an analysis of the very limited extent to which output indicators are currently used by science-policy makers in Britain, see J. IRVINE, B. R. MARTIN, C. H. G. OLDHAM, op. cit., note 5. J. IRVINE, B. R. MARTIN, C. H. G. OLDHAM,Research Evaluation in British Science: A SPRU Review, a report prepared for the French Miistry of Research and Industry by the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RF, U. K.

  10. For example, the situation in Britain is now such that, within the Science and Engineering Research Council (the organization responsible for funding research in the natural sciences), one subsection of physics — nuclear physics — has its own Board, as does astronomy and space research, while all other areas of science — physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and computing — have only one Board betwen them. The result is that Big Science consumes almost double the resources of all the remaining natural sciences together, whilst constituting only a small proportion of total scientific activity, at least in terms of numbers of researchers (see J. IRVINE, B. R. MARTIN,, for further discussion).

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  11. See, for example, H. COLLINS, Scientific Knowledge and Science Policy: Some Foreseeable Implications, paper presented at Council for Science and Society Conference on Growing Points in Science Studies, Imperial College, 25 June 1983.

  12. The methodology is described in detail in B. R. MARTIN and J. IRVINE (1983).

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  14. See B. R. MARTIN, J. IRVINE (1983), for a fuller discussion of what is meant by the term ‘partial indicator’.

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  15. The distinction between the ‘quality’, ‘importance’, and ‘impact’ of a publication is discussed further in 69–70.

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  17. See J. IRVINE, B. R. MARTIN, CERN: Past Performance and Future Prospects — II — The Scientific Performance of the CERN Accelerators,Research Policy, 13 (1984) 247–84.

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  18. CERN Annual Report 1972, CERN, Geneva, 1972, pp. 11 and 26.

  19. Of the 182 physicists, 169 were able to carry out this ranking. Further details of the interviews are given in J. IRVINE, B. R. MARTIN, 247–84.

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  20. The degree of consistency is analyzed in detail in B. R. MARTIN, J. IRVINE,.

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  21. See J. IRVINE and B. R. MARTIN, Basic Research in the East and West: A Comparison of the Scientific Performance of High-Energy Physics Accelerators,Social Studies of Science, (forthcoming).

  22. See note 6.,Research Policy 12 (1983) 61–90.

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  23. B. R. MARTIN and J. IRVINE, CERN: Past Performance and Future Prospects — III — CERN and the Future of World High-Energy Physics,Research Policy, 13 (1984) 311–42.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, BN1 9RF, Brighton, (UK)

    J. Irvine & B. R. Martin

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  1. J. Irvine
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  2. B. R. Martin
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No order of seniority implied (rotating first authorship). The authors are Fellows of the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex, where they work on a range of issues connected with policies for basic and applied research. They gratefully acknowledge the support of the British Economic and Social Research Council in carrying out this research, and that of the Leverhulme Trust in meeting the costs of additional analysis and the writing of this paper. The autors also wish to thank various colleagues at SPRU, especially Professors LindaWilson and KeithPavitt, for numerous useful comments and criticisms. An earlier version of the paper was presented at an Imperial College/Science Policy Research Unit seminar in May 1983, and at a Nordic Scientific Policy Council conference held in Helsinki during February 1984.

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Irvine, J., Martin, B.R. Evaluating big science: CERN's past performance and future prospects. Scientometrics 7, 281–308 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017150

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