Journal article
The impacts of incentives for international publications on research cultures in Chinese humanities and social sciences
- Abstract:
- Incentives for improving research productivity at universities prevail in global academia. However, the rationale, methodology, and impact of such incentives and consequent evaluation regimes are in need of scrutinization. This paper explores the influences of financial and career-related publishing incentive schemes on research cultures. It draws on an analysis of 75 interviews with academics, senior university administrators, and journal editors from China, a country that has seen widespread reliance on international publication counts in research evaluation and reward systems. The study focuses on humanities and social sciences (HSS) as disciplinary sites, which embody distinct characteristics and have experienced the introduction of incentive schemes in China since the early 2000s. Findings reveal tensions between internationalization and indigenization, quality and quantity, integrity and instrumentalism, equity and inequity in Chinese academia. In particular, we argue that a blanket incentive scheme could reinforce a managerial culture in higher education, encourage performative objectification of academics, and jeopardize their agency. We thereby challenge ‘one-size-fits-all’ policymaking, and suggest instead that institutions should have the opportunity to adopt an ethical and ‘human-oriented’ approach when developing their research incentives and evaluation mechanisms.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 598.3KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s11024-021-09441-w
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Minerva More from this journal
- Volume:
- 59
- Issue:
- 4
- Pages:
- 469–492
- Publication date:
- 2021-04-06
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-03-07
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1573-1871
- ISSN:
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0026-4695
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1166311
- Local pid:
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pubs:1166311
- Deposit date:
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2021-03-07
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Xu et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2021. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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