Investigating Assessment Standards in the Netherlands, Italy, and the United Kingdom

The following contribution asks which role standards for research information play in practices of responsible research evaluation. The authors develop the notion of assessment standards against the background of functional standard classifications. The development of semantic and procedural assessment standards in the national research evaluation exercises of the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Italy are investigated using a qualitative case study design. A central finding of the study is that assessment standards incorporate conflicting values. A continuous tradeoff between the transparency of evaluation procedures and provided information as well as the variety of research outputs is being counterbalanced in all countries by compensating a higher level of semantic standardization with lower degrees of procedural standardization.