A global assessment of academic promotion criteria: What really counts?

The assessment of research performance is widely seen as a vital tool in upholding the highest standards of quality, with selection and competition believed to drive progress. Specifically, academic institutions need to take critical decisions on hiring and promotion, while facing external pressure by also being subject to research assessment. Here, we present the first truly global outlook on research assessment for career progression with specific focus on promotion to full professorship, based on 532 policies from 190 academic institutions and 58 government agencies from a total of 121 countries, with 75% of these countries being outside of Europe and North America. We not only investigated how frequently various promotion criteria are mentioned, but also carried out a statistical analysis to infer structural commonalities and differences across policies. We find that quantitative methods of assessment remain popular, in agreement with other more geographically-restricted studies [5–9], but they are not omnipresent. We find notable differences between the Global North and the Global South as well as between institutional and national policies, but less so between research disciplines. In particular, a preference for bibliometric indicators is more marked in upper-middle income countries. While we see some variation, many promotion policies are based on the assumption of specific career paths that become normative rather than embracing diversity. In turn, this restricts opportunities for researchers. Our results challenge current practice and have strategic implications for researchers, research managers, and national governments.