ABSTRACT
Researchers can be, and are, ranked against each other in terms of the relative amount of research marketplace currency that they have. This is almost always expressed in the form of research-related metrics which quantify a researcher’s research production in terms of market-favoured parameters – number and type of publications, and amount of external research funding gained, being two of the most favoured metrics. At the level of the individual researcher, an unstated assumption in all this currency conversion in the research marketplace is that the ‘better’ the research metrics attached to an individual researcher, then the ‘better’ that individual researcher is. The associated amount of metric-derived currency can be used to establish the relative ranking of an individual researcher when compared to other researchers for, say, promotion or tenure. The amount of metric-derived currency in that research marketplace bank account is a defining feature of the researcher self and its worth in neoliberal contexts.
