Madam, – Conor O’Carroll’s article (“Irish science achieves high ratings for research”, Science Today, March 24th) shows a welcome appreciation of both the strengths and weaknesses of bibliometrics as a means of assessing research. They are useful when used appropriately, but they can be dangerous in that they appear to offer an easy option for avoiding the hard work of actually trying to understand what has been achieved as well as conveying an exaggerated impression of quantitative and objective exactness.
A recent Royal Irish Academy report on the appropriateness of key performance indicators to research in arts and humanities disciplines details the wide range of research outputs and scholarly activities that must be considered in assessing excellence. – Yours, etc,