"No mundo como está, precisamos de gente dura e não de gente mole"

"gente dura...É gente fiel aos princípios que fizeram o pouco de “civilização” que ainda sobra nestes tempos de ascensão do Inferno" https://www.publico.pt/2025/01/25/opiniao/opiniao/mundo-precisamos-gente-dura-nao-gente-mole-2120093

Aquilo que o Pacheco Pereira se esqueceu de referir no seu artigo de hoje, foi que nestes tempos "de ascenção do inferno", os membros da Academia tem obrigações acrescidas em termos de mostrarem que não são moles, pois são eles, que como escreveu Chomsky, tem o dever de enfrentar aqueles possuidores de muito poder e que se acham acima da critica  https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-responsibility-of-intellectuals-to.html

Declaração de interesses - Declaro que no passado critiquei por diversas vezes a falta de coragem de muitos académicos e que cheguei inclusive a sugerir publicamente, que aqueles que tem o especial "estatuto reforçado" de emprego, tenure, tivessem que fazer a devida prova que alguma vez na sua vida disseram ou no mínimo dos minimos, investigaram algo incómodo, aos olhos dos poderes instituídos ou fáticos, que justifique esse mesmo estatuto: 

"A few years ago, I proposed to the Portuguese Minister responsible for higher education and science that a measure should be implemented to require tenured professors to demonstrate a track record of engaging in intellectually challenging or controversial research or discourse, as discussed in Chomsky's essay on the responsibility of intellectuals.   In my perspective, if a professor has never found it necessary to exercise their tenure, it raises questions about their eligibility to maintain it. The guiding principle should be: tenure, use it or risk losing it."

https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2023/11/audacious-academics-fearlessly-putting.html

What’s the Value of a Scientist Ranking That Excludes 90% of Nobel Laureates?

https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2024/11/portugal-clear-case-study-highlighting.html

Building on my previous post from last November, which highlighted a compelling case study exposing the significant flaws in Clarivate's HCR list, I’d like to draw attention to another valuable contribution on this topic. Recently published on January 25 in the journal Scientometrics, the paper is authored by three German researchers affiliated with the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research and the Max Planck Society. Among them is Lutz Bornmann, the esteemed recipient of the De Solla Prize. The study provides further insights into the inherent weaknesses and limitations of Clarivate's ranking methodology.

One of the most striking aspects of this paper is captured in Figure 5, which paints a sobering picture of just how poorly Clarivate’s HCR list performs when evaluated against the highest standard of scientific excellence: Nobel laureates. Astonishingly, the HCR list manages to include only about 10% of Nobel Prize-winning scientists, inexplicably excluding the vast majority of these globally recognized leaders in their fields. This fundamental oversight raises serious questions about the credibility and utility of Clarivate's rankings as a measure of scientific impact.

In stark contrast, the Stanford Scientist ranking emerges as a far more robust alternative. According to the paper, this ranking successfully identifies over 90% of Nobel laureates, showcasing its superior accuracy, methodology, and alignment with true measures of excellence in science. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-024-05158-1#Sec11

Influência do número de investigadores listados no ranking da Universidade de Stanford na subida das melhores universidades nos rankings internacionais

 

https://19-pacheco-torgal-19.blogspot.com/2024/10/as-universidades-distraidas-que-deixam.html

Ainda na sequência do post anterior, sobre as universidades que foram mais rápidas, as que foram mais lentas e ainda aquelas que muito estranhamente foram extremamente lentas a noticiar os últimos resultados do conhecido e prestigiado ranking de investigadores da Universidade de Stanford, aproveito para partilhar um interessante artigo que foi publicado há poucos dias atrás na revista Applied Economic Letters e que ontem comentei no email abaixo.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504851.2025.2454533?src=

_____________________________________________________________________

De: F. Pacheco Torgal 
Enviado: 22 de janeiro de 2025 17:00
Para: H Qi, 

Cc: KH Cao, CK Woo, H Cai
Assunto: Research Letter - How much does the number of top 2% researchers move the global rankings of the world’s top 100 universities?

Dear Colleague

I just read your research letter and found it very interesting. However, I was wondering whether it was a good idea to combine accurate rankings, such as the Shanghai Ranking—widely respected for its focus on measurable and reproducible parameters, including Nobel Prizes—with rankings of lower quality, like THE or QS. These latter rankings have faced significant criticism from some academics. Check a list of negative comments about these rankings at the end of this post. https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2021/06/jornal-publico-volta-dar-destaque-um.html

In my opinion, the Shanghai Ranking has only one significant flaw: its reliance on the flawed Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers list. https://pachecotorgal.com/2024/11/20/portugal-a-clear-case-study-highlighting-the-flaws-in-clarivates-hcr-list I hope that those responsible for the Shanghai Ranking will consider switching to the Stanford Ranking, which could be a more robust and reliable alternative. This ranking, is the only one worldwide that fulfills three fundamental conditions, namely the disambiguation condition, the removal of self-citations, and the fractional counting condition, which allows for the neutralization of the artificial advantage of articles with hundreds or thousands of co-authors. Moreover, this ranking offers an added advantage by avoiding the bias towards specific scientific disciplines https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-flawed-clarivate-list-of.html

PS - By the way, are you familiar with the findings of Faria and Mixon (2021)? They discovered that "the marginal impact of an additional academic publication on a scholar’s citations increases that scholar’s pay by anywhere from 2.8% to 8.9%." https://pacheco-torgal.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-marginal-impact-of-publication-on.html