The Six-Year Transfer Assessment: highlights and low points of a necessary project through an analysis of a sample of rejections in Communication Sciences and a study of the value of journal publishing and agency commissions

Abstract

The Six-Year Transfer Assessment is an analogous exercise to the Six-Year Research Assessment, created to recognize the transfer activities of Spanish researchers. This paper focuses on the preliminary results of its pilot project. In addition, it analyzes the rejections in the Communication Sciences area to clarify the types of value attributed to them. Likewise, two specific values are analyzed, namely the editing of journals and membership of evaluation agency commissions. Finally, a series of proposals are made with the aim of eliminating or reducing the main weaknesses of the pilot project, such as scoring inconsistencies and two significant biases: gender and private university affiliation. The development of a system in which the evaluators are specialists in the typology of transfers instead of research areas is recommended, and that the requirements fit with the areas.