Peer review for the evaluation of academic research: lessons from the Italian experience

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to control the reliability of peer review when evaluating academic research in the Three-Year Research Assessment Exercise developed in Italy. Our analysis covers four disciplinary sectors: chemistry, biology, humanities and economics. The results provide evidence that highlights strengths and weaknesses of peer review for judging the quality of the academic research in different fields of science, vis-à-vis bibliometric indicators. Moreover, some basic features of the evaluation process are discussed, to understand their usefulness for reinforcing the effectiveness of the peers' final outcome.