Snel, Marnix --- "Evaluation of academic legal publications at the EU level" [2019] ELECD 855; in van Gestel, Rob; Lienhard, Andreas (eds), "Evaluating Academic Legal Research in Europe" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 384

Book Title: Evaluating Academic Legal Research in Europe

Editor(s): van Gestel, Rob; Lienhard, Andreas

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: Evaluation of academic legal publications at the EU level

Author(s): Snel, Marnix

Number of pages: 38

Abstract/Description:

A European perspective to the assessment of academic legal publications is still in its infancy. Yet, in Europe, there are several contexts in which assessment of academic works takes place: when legal scholars apply for funding at the European Research Council, when they submit manuscripts to book publishers or law journals that target a European audience, and when they try to get awarded a contract for doing research for the European Commission. Moreover, there are debates and initiatives on European journal and university rankings in which the assessment of academic legal publications is also discussed. This chapter explores and critically discusses the assessment criteria and procedures employed in these various contexts. It finds that all institutions that evaluate works of academic legal scholarship have, independent of each other, developed their own specific evaluation criteria and procedures that are subjected to similar flaws (most-importantly: multi-interpretable criteria and a focus on author status rather than substantive quality). It is therefore argued that it is high time to have a more vivid European debate on how best to evaluate the work legal scholars produce.