Joseph Weiler (Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of International Law) on EJIL: Talk!
‘[T]he common thread here is obvious: the immense, self-defeating pressure put on young scholars, at the early stages of their career, to distinguish themselves by insane quantitative criteria. It started with worthy objectives: introducing some objective indicia in the evaluation of individual and institutional academic merit – countering some of the pathologies of a purely subjective evaluation of individuals (gender, class and ‘old-boy-network’ biases to mention but a few) and reputational stasis among institutions where ‘famous for being famous’ prevented energetic and innovative institutions from achieving their due reputational desserts and even surpassing the iconic ivory towers that oftentimes rested on their desiccated dried-out laurels. There was also a normatively more complicated background to this phenomenon, namely the application to academia of marketplace principles, and thus the search for measurable indicia of ‘productivity’ and utility.’
Read the full blog post here.