Review of the Research Institute for History and - Universiteit Utrecht

B 10. Overview of the results
Table B.8 Aggregated OGC output, 1997-2004
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total
Academic publications in journals 253 280 244 173 228 199 219 164 1760
Academic publications book chapters 255 244 211 155 199 194 153 173 1584
Monographs and editing 63 89 107 90 99 75 84 74 681
PhD-theses 15 20 27 19 25 14 21 10 151
Professional publications and products 176 227 192 161 171 156 142 144 1369
Publications constitute the main output of research carried out at OGC. In the period under review 5,547
academic and professional publications and dissertation have been published. On average 8.9 academic publications
were produced per fte tenured faculty (i.e. the number of academic publications divided by research
input of tenured faculty). Of the academic publications 40% were international, i.e. published in another language
than Dutch.
In the arts and humanities, a more sophisticated assessment, other than by pure numbers, remains
extremely diffi cult. Reliable measurement by citation or impact, as is customary in the natural sciences, is
not available. There is no consensus about the ranking of journals. The European Science Foundation is
trying to develop such a ranking system, and this will inevitably privilege international over national media.
This is a problem insofar as cultural disciplines are by defi nition culture-bound: national journals for Literary
Studies and History are not by defi nition of lesser quality than international media. To a high degree, the
paradigmatic character of a discipline, or its absence, determines not only the international orientation, but
also the accessibility of the media in that fi eld. The cultural sciences are almost by defi ntion less paradigmatic
than, for instance, Chomskyan linguistics. Journals of Dutch Studies are almost impossible to classify along
the national-international axis. The Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis
can be considered as an international journal. Prestigious international journals as the Economic History
Review and Past and Present turn out to nonetheless have a strong preference for British and Commonwealth
topics. Attempts at ranking also tend to over-emphasize the importance of journals to the detriment of books,
which remain very important for the humanities. And so are the channels of communication with the nonacademic
audience, which constitutes a signifi cant life-line for the humanities. This is not to say that international
publishing, in competitive journals and with prestigious international academic presses is unimportant.
OGC highlights such achievements, for instance on its web-site, and keeps track of all international publications.
Table B.7, demonstrates that during the period under review the percentage of international publications
fi rst steadily increased, to decrease from 2002 on again.
Table B.9 Percentage international academic publications OGC, 1997-2004
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
not available 37,68% 49,02% 50,84% 52,17% 50,11% 42,44% 32,37%
OGC Research Institute for History and Culture
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