AIS

The rise of «new public management» (NPM) in higher education systems of many OECD countries is based on, and fuels, research evaluation as a political and management tool. Owing to methodological problems of identifying changes in research and causally attributing them to the use of evaluations, there is a lack of evidence for positive or negative effects of evaluations alike. In this article, I argue that we nevertheless have enough empirical material to estimate the strongest possible outcome of evaluation-based research policy and management. Research evaluations back strong political expectations concerning research performance but produce inadequate information, which further reduces the already very limited action capabilities of university management. Under these conditions, which are unlikely to disappear, the institutionalisation of new public management is likely to lead to a performance-based management of research portfolios by universities.