From impact to relevance. Quality assessment in Political Science

Abstract

Academic journals are an important infrastructure for a scholarly discipline like political science. Professional editing and reviewing are instrumental to achieve high-quality products. Moreover, it has become common to scientometrists, research managers and policy makers to use journal output and article citation for their analysis and decision-making. One early, and particularly prominent variable in this game has been the "impact factor" (IF). With the "San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment", the scientific community recently attempted to critically counter the tendency to misuse the IF, as well as other metrics. In this round table, the usage of the IF among leading political science journals will be discussed, as well as its usage for decision-making processes in the social sciences. Are there alternative models to assess scientific quality in the social sciences? Participants: Gabriele Abels, Donatella della Porta, Michael Keating, Thomas König, Birgit Sauer & Isabelle Engeli