Lienhard, Andreas; Byland, Karin; Schmied, Martin --- "Evaluation of academic legal publications in Switzerland" [2019] ELECD 455; in van Gestel, Rob; Lienhard, Andreas (eds), "Evaluating Academic Legal Research in Europe" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 142

Book Title: Evaluating Academic Legal Research in Europe

Editor(s): van Gestel, Rob; Lienhard, Andreas

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781788115490

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Evaluation of academic legal publications in Switzerland

Author(s): Lienhard, Andreas; Byland, Karin; Schmied, Martin

Number of pages: 28

Abstract/Description:

Increased requirements of accountability put research institutions and researchers under pressure to introduce standards for research evaluation. This also applies to legal research in Switzerland. This chapter analyses the procedures and criteria employed for the evaluation of academic legal publications in different contexts. Findings show that in most contexts, academic legal publications are being assessed by (simple) peer review procedures. Double-blind peer review remains rare, as well as the use of bibliometric methods and indicators. Moreover, attempting to counter the shortcomings of peer review with bibliometrics is not a solution. Criteria of how to assess academic legal publications are not communicated in detail or remain general. However, the quality of academic legal publications is often assessed by the “implicit knowledge” of the reviewers, but there is no consensus among researchers on how to define, let alone, measure quality. We therefore argue that there is room for increasing the transparency of evaluation criteria and procedures in Switzerland.