Scientific publishing, expert committee and nominations for level 1 and 2

As you all know, institutions (for example UiB) are accredited for scientific publications authored by persons acknowledging affiliation with the institutional unit at the time of publishing (through author affiliations included in the publication). The units are credited based on the share of the publication’s authors affiliated with the unit. This is called author shares. Thus it is important that addresses etc. are correct in Cristin and here the responsibility rests on the individual institution (read: also researcher).

The national measurement system for scientific publications is based on a subdivision of scientific publications in various levels based on an evaluation of the quality of the journals.  The purpose of a quality division of journals is to stimulate high quality output when publishing scientific articles. When the publication channel has level 1 or 2 it means that it is of approved standard, and level 2 channels have the highest international prestige (about 20 % of all scientific journals within respective disciplines).

NSD is case handling level 1 channels, whereas UHRs’ Publication council is coordinating the placement of level 2 channels. This is done based on feedback from UHR’s many national expert committees. The national expert committee you will find here.

You may search for any scientific journal at NDS‘s publication channel register.

In order to find out where “your” scientific journals are situated, you may read pages 4 and 5 in the following letter. This was sent out together with the nomination process last autumn 2013.  Here you will find links to all scientific journals in medicine, sorted into academic sub-disciplines. Note that changes done last autumn will not be updated in this letter (which was sent out prior to the nominating).

If you wish to suggest changes in levels 1 and/or 2 within your academic area you may contact the national expert committee or NSD which is responsible for administering centralized services for the documentation system, such as registers for authorized publication channels (scientific journals, series and publishers):

– Procedures for suggestions to the register (in Norwegian):

 Description of procedures for adding new channels to the register, with focus on how user suggestions are processed.

– Criteria for approval of new publication channels (in Norwegian): Information about criteria used to evaluate new channels.

– System for research documentation (in Norwegian): Information about the model for the documentation system.

Deadline for suggesting new channels within the reporting year 2014 is November 30.

Roland

New positions at K2

Despite the tight financial situation at the institute, we must steadily work with future recruitment of staff.  Good recruitment is extremely important for the long-term development of the institute.  This spring, K2 will start working on the framework for future recruitment.

It will be important to single out and weigh the criteria to be used in the recruitment process. Key words are teaching needs and skills, research, cooperation abilities, and leadership.

Unanswered questions are whether or not new positions should be allocated the academic sections or if we should follow the model: “We don’t care what you do as long as you are a leader in your field”.  What weight should the university clinics’ wish for specialized skills be given?  Likewise, we must discuss what positions are most suitable given the tasks we have – should we aim for more 50 and 100 % positions at the expense of 20 % positions?  Should the division of principal positions into multiple 20% positions as has been the case in recent years be reversed? Should we now hire more people to technical positions at the expense of scientific personnel?

We will begin by collecting background information about the present employment situation, expected budget resources for new positions, teaching needs (undervisningsregnskap) and scientific production (Cristin). Next we will ask for input from you regarding the principles for prioritization, as well as well-founded requests for new positions.  I hope many of you will engage actively in this.

Welcome to an important and a most certainly, demanding process. A detailed plan for the recruitment process will be published in K2’s weekly newsletter during April.

Eystein Husebye