Evaluation of performance of health research in the Netherlands

Abstract The Dutch Advisory Council for Science Policy commissioned analyses regarding the performance of health research in the Netherlands. The analyses comprised (a) the numbers of papers published in international journals; (b) the numbers of times these were cited two years later; (c) the numbers of editorships held by Dutch scientists on the editoral boards of major international journals; (d) the numbers of times that Dutch scientists were named as “outstanding researcher” by foreign scientists; (e) the judgements of some 100 Dutch experts. The results indicate that health research in the Netherlands has some international standing, although a few other small countries appeared to do better. None of the research fields in the Netherlands appeared to be uniformly strong. The tools we developed enabled us to differentiate within fields. None of the eight medical faculties was uniformly strong or weak with respect to research performance, although overall differences were apparent. The methods used to indentify strong research fields and groups all suffer from varying drawbacks. Therefore, research performance should be studied using a set of science indicators.