Jonas Lindahls slutseminarium:
The governance of higher education institutions and science have endured significant changes during the last decades, emphasizing competitiveness, performance, and excellence. Embedded in this development is an increased use of bibliometric indicators in contexts of employment, appointment, and funding. These changes have gradually extended to the early career phase and doctoral education.
This thesis aims to make a contribution to an ongoing discussion about the predictability of research performance and the reasonability of using bibliometric indicators as decision support tools in the early career regarding, e.g., employment, appointment, and funding.
The thesis revolves around two overarching research questions focusing the early career and the doctoral education: (1) the degree to which research performance, as operationalized with bibliometric indicators, is predictable; and (2) to which degree other factors, with a main focus on gender differences, might affect research performance.
The main results suggest that while research performance, as operationalized by bibliometric indicators, during the early career is predictable to some degree, there are observed gender differences in performance that have to be taken into consideration. If they are not, the use of these types of performance indicators in science policy and management might increase the gender gap in science.
