Valuing academics working in the social sciences and humanities, by Pep Torn

Photo: Josh Hild

"Evaluating scientific research and, by extension, academics themselves, is as important as it is controversial in universities," stresses Pep Torn, who asserts that scientific activity cannot be conducted appropriately without clear metrics to evaluate academics. He points out that, since 2016, the European University Institute has been contributing to the HumetricsHSS initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation, whose aim is to create evaluation frameworks "that promulgate values in academic environments in the fields of humanities and social sciences."

The system for evaluating the quality of the university system seems to be working fairly well, according to Torn, who says that "this is shown by the high positions of the UB, UAB, UPC and UPF in various international rankings". Even so, there is always room for improvement in areas such as transparency, collaboration, and internationalization.