Academic career assessment has a strong influence on future early career researchers. The use of numerical metrics like the Journal Impact Factor or the H-Index for assessing researchers forces them to focus on publishing as many articles as possible in a few journals. The “publish and perish” culture that follows leads to increasing pressure on academics and prevent them to broaden the range of their activities and taking other forms of communicating their research into account. This also significantly impacts their self-perception as academics and hinders the transition to Open Science.

There is an increasing consensus among Universities and other stakeholders concerning the need to reform the current assessment system. The presentation will look at the problems attached to the publish and perish approach and address how this can increase the precarity of researchers careers, but also discuss alternative approaches to (academic) career assessment that enable early career researchers to develop their full potential.

Dr. Alexander Hasgall is Head of the EUA Council for Doctoral Education (EUA-CDE). He is responsible for the largest European network in this field, bringing together a community of academic leaders and professionals from 265 Universities in 36 countries. Before assuming this position, he coordinated the Swiss University Rectors conference’s programme on research evaluation in the social sciences and humanities. Alexander Hasgall obtained a doctorate in History from the University of Zurich, with a dissertation on the topic «Regimes of Recognition. Struggles over truth and justice in dealing with the last military dictatorship in Argentina». Outside of the higher education sector, Alexander acquired different working experiences in the NGO sector, in market research and in Journalism.