Evaluating Academic Legal Research in Europe

The Advantage of Lagging Behind

Edited by Rob van Gestel, Tilburg University, the Netherlands and Andreas Lienhard, University of Bern, Switzerland

Legal academics in Europe publish a wide variety of materials including books, articles and essays, in an assortment of languages, and for a diverse readership. As a consequence, this variety can pose a problem for the evaluation of academic legal research. This thought-provoking book offers an overview of the legal and policy norms, methods and criteria applied in the evaluation of academic legal research, from a comparative perspective.

‘This book, while providing some answers, poses even more questions – and this is indeed its greatest strength. The reader unfamiliar with the subject will find in the book a helpful introduction to the many problems it attempts to address, while the more informed reader will appreciate the degree of detail of the individual chapters, and the depth of the comparison undertaken by the editors.’
——奥尔加·Ceran欧洲杂志Legal Studies

‘I had the privilege to work with Andreas Lienhard on the topic of Evaluation of Legal Research in Switzerland. In a much-needed further step, he has now, with Rob van Gestel, masterfully broadened the perspective on the European level. As the insightful introduction of the book shows, evaluating academic legal research is neither obvious nor easy. By comparing various national approaches, this book goes a long way towards better understanding a complex and high-stakes matter.’
– Thierry Tanquerel, University of Geneva, Switzerland

‘(Law) is a discipline that is both venerable and vulnerable. In many ways, the legal discipline (my discipline) lags behind most of the other academic domains. If we want our discipline to catch up with the others, we need to develop reliable and transparent international standards for evaluating its quality. I truly hope that this great comparative book, with contributions from the finest legal scholars, will help us make significant progress. This is an issue that needs our urgent attention.’
– Carel Stolker, President of Leiden University and author of Rethinking the Law School – Education, Research, Outreach and Governance