Performance assessment systems for research activities in Italian higher education: overcoming a taboo?

The introduction of performance-based funding and formula-based funding mechanisms have enhanced competition among universities, that compete now for public money with each other, and with other fields of expenditure. HEIs operate upon a market in which representatives of the general public spend funds on academic services. To secure their budget, HEIs have to compete and react to claims and conditions laid upon them, not just by government. (Jongbloed & Van der Knoop, 1999). In Italy, the distribution of the performance-based part of funding depends mostly on the number of students and the ranking in research activities. This paper examines how the changes of the allocation method at the system level have influenced the managerial control systems at institutional level. According to institutional theory, indeed, performance-based funding systems produce isomorphic pressures that would enhance HEI’s propensity to adopt commercial approaches to conceptualizing performance and developing ad hoc performance assessment systems. The traditionally dominant Humboldtian model where academic freedom is preserved, however, clashes with this McKinsey-like approach to organizational performance. Italian HEIs are becoming hybrid organizations characterized by tensions between the dominant academic culture and the emerging managerial model: the paper examines how the coexistence of these two conflicting cultures results in different models of PAS for research activities. The paper illustrates the results of a survey delivered in January 2020. The analysis is merely descriptive: however, it allows to understand to what extent Italian universities have adopted (or are intentioned to implement) self-assessment systems for research activities. Secondly, the paper sheds light on the metrics used at institutional level to evaluate research output, as well as to assess the researcher’s individual performance. Lastly, the analysis aims at understanding whether the information obtained from the performance assessment system is used to reward research staff. Control is considered a fundamental precondition for personnel evaluation. Busetti & Dente (2014) found that, in spite of their importance, management control systems were seriously underdeveloped in Italian universities. Research in this field shows, however, contradictory results: surprisingly, Edgar and Geare (2013) found that the monitoring of efficiency and effectiveness through measurement of staff performances is associable to low performing university departments. Following this research stream, our study examines control systems developed at institutional level specifically for research activities; it is preparatory to a further analysis aiming at studying the effects of different models of PAS on research staff productivity and engagement.