Evaluation of Legal Research: Comparison of the Outcomes of a Swiss and Dutch National Survey

Abstract

Law as a discipline is lagging behind other (social) sciences when it comes to research evaluation. There is no European ranking of law journals or legal publishers, no generally accepted system of peer review, no bibliometrical databases, and no consensus on quality indicators for academic legal publications. Scholars in Switzerland and the Netherlands organized surveys to ask their colleagues how they feel about different research evaluation methods and which quality indicators they prefer for the assessment of their research. The results reveal that, unlike university managers, legal scholars have a strong preference for qualitative evaluation methods (e.g. editorial scrutiny or independent peer review) over quantitative methods, such as citation counting and ranking. However, scholars in both countries seem to be worried about the costs and bureaucracy that come along with substantive quality assessment and about the selection and instruction of reviewers.