Approaches to research and development performance assessment in the United States: An analysis of recent evaluation trends

Recent trends associated with performance assessment and evaluation in US Government R&D agencies are analyzed by, first, giving a contextual overview of three Government-wide performance assessment schemes and, second, illustrating how these and other approaches are employed in four federal R&D funding agencies. While focusing on the rise of bibliometric analysis as an evaluation technique, the broader aim is to help those interested in performance assessment, domestically and internationally, to understand the system of R&D evaluation in the USA. Major trends in standardization of performance assessment practices, the utilization of quantitative evaluation methodologies, and the development of new hybrid approaches have emerged over recent years. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.