Claire Donovan

Claire Donovan DPhil, MA (Sussex), BA Hons. (Soton)

Reader

Email: claire.donovan@brunel.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0)1895 267651

Fax: +44 (0)1895 269708

Claire Donovan is a Reader in Assessing Research Impact, and joined Brunel University in 2010. She previously held research and teaching positions at the Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University; Nuffield College, Oxford University; and The Open University.

Areas of expertise
• Assessing research impact
• Research evaluation and research policy
• Evaluating public services
• Evaluation and metrics as technologies of governance

Research interests
Assessing the social, economic, environmental, and cultural impact of publicly funded research; research evaluation and research policy; bibliometric analysis; developing novel indicators of research quality and impact; comparative Higher Education policy; evaluating public services; evaluation and metrics as technologies of governance; technocracy and democracy; social and political aspects of ‘positivism’ and post-positivism.

Current research projects
‘Measuring Cultural Value (Phase 2)’. Arts and Humanities Research Council/Economic and Social Research Council/Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

‘Engagement in Research: Does it improve performance at a clinician, team, service and organisational level in healthcare organisations?’ National Institute of Health Research, Service Delivery and Organisation Programme (with Stephen Hanney, Annette Boaz and Bryony Soper).

Biography
• Sociological Research Online (Editorial Board)
• Societies (Editorial Board)
• Visiting Fellow, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge; Visiting Fellow, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge (October - December 2009)
• Visiting Fellow, Science, Technology and Society Cluster, National University of Singapore (February 2008)
• Visiting Fellow, Science and Technology Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex (December 2007 - January 2008)
• Visiting Fellow, Science, Technology and Society Program, John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (November - December 2007)
• Chair, Australian Government Technical Working Group on Research Impact (2006)
• Visiting Fellow, Department of Government, London School of Economics (May 2004)
• Elected Associate Member, Sociology Group, Nuffield College, Oxford University (2003 – 2005)

Publications

Donovan, Claire (forthcoming) 'Beyond the Postmodern University', The European Legacy

Teresa H. Jones, Claire Donovan and Steve Hanney (2012). 'Tracing the Wider Impacts of Biomedical Research: A literature search to develop a novel citation categorisation technique', Scientometrics

Donovan, Claire (2011) ‘State of the Art in Assessing Research Impact’, Research Evaluation, 20(3):175-9.
Donovan, Claire and Stephen Hanney (2011) ‘The “Payback Framework” Explained’, Research Evaluation, 20(3):181-3.
Donovan, Claire (2009) ‘Gradgrinding the Social Sciences: The Politics of Metrics of Political Science’, Political Studies Review, 7(1): 73-83.
Donovan, Claire (2008) ‘The Australian Research Quality Framework: A Live Experiment in Capturing the Social, Economic, Environmental and Cultural Returns of Publicly Funded Research’, New Directions for Evaluation 118: 47-60; also published in Chris L. S. Coryn and Michael Scriven (eds.) Reforming the Evaluation of Research (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/The American Evaluation Association), pp. 47-60.
Donovan, Claire (2008) ‘Das zweiköpfige Lama zähmen: Die australische Suche nach den besten Evaluierungsmethoden für die Geisteswissenschaften’ [‘Taming the Pushmi-pullyu: State of the Art in Evaluating Humanities Research Quality – A View from Down Under’], in Elisabeth Lack and Christoph Markschies (eds.) What the Hell is Quality? Qualitätsstandards in den Geisteswissenschaften (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag), pp. 74-98.
Donovan, Claire (2007) Guest editor’s introduction: ‘Future Pathways for Science Policy and Research Assessment: Metrics vs. Peer Review, Quality vs. Impact’, Science and Public Policy 34(8): 538-542.
Donovan, Claire (2007) ‘The Qualitative Future of Research Evaluation’, Science and Public Policy 34(8): 585-597.
Donovan, Claire (2007) ‘The Hidden Perils of Citation Counting for Australasian Political Science’, Australian Journal of Political Science 42(4): 665-678.
Donovan, Claire and Linda Butler (2007) ‘Testing Novel Quantitative Indicators of Research “Quality”, Esteem and “User Engagement”: An Economics Pilot Study’, Research Evaluation 16(4): 231-242.
Donovan, Claire (2007) ‘Consuming Social Science’, in Mark Bevir and Frank Trentmann (eds.) Governance, Consumers and Citizens: Agency and Resistance in Contemporary Politics. (New York, NY; Houndmills, UK: Palgrave MacMillan), pp. 69-94.
Donovan, Claire (2006) ‘The Chequered Career of a Cryptic Concept’, The Political Quarterly, 77(s1): 61-72; also published in Geoff Dench (ed.) The Rise and Rise of Meritocracy (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 61-72.
Clay, Moira, Claire Donovan, Linda Butler and Brian Oldenberg (2006) ‘The Returns from Cardiovascular Research: The Impact of the National Heart Foundation of Australia’s Investment’, Medical Journal of Australia, 185(4): 209-212.
Donovan, Claire and Phil Larkin (2006) ‘The Problem of Political Science and Practical Politics’, Politics 26(1): 11-17.
Donovan, Claire (2005) ‘The Governance of Social Science and Everyday Epistemology’, Public Administration 83(3): 597-615.
Donovan, Claire, Barbara Hodgson, Eileen Scanlon and Elizabeth Whitelegg (2005) ‘Women in Higher Education: Issues and Challenges for Part-time Scientists’, Women’s Studies International Forum 28(2-3): 247-258.
Donovan, Claire (2004) ‘Citation and Content Analysis’ in A. H. Halsey, A History of Sociology in Britain: Science, Literature and Society. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 241-249.

Media
'Get off Your High Horse', Times Higher Education, 25 August 2011, p. 24.

Feature article: ‘Quality Guru Mounts a Complex Argument’, The Australian Higher Education Supplement, 20 October 2010, p. 23.
‘It’s Horses for Courses When You Want a Real Sense of Track Record’, Times Higher Education, 16 April 2009, pp. 24-5.
‘Dr Spendlittle and the Pushmi-pullyu: a terrible tale of research evaluation’, Times Higher Education 24 January 2008, pp. 24-5.
‘Visible Gains From Research’, The Australian Higher Education Supplement 1 November 2006, p. 33.
‘An Instrument too Blunt to Judge Sharp Minds’, Times Higher Education Supplement 11 August 2006, p. 14.

Academic Blogs
'Impact is a strong weapon for making an evidence-based case for enhanced research support but a state-of-the-art approach to measurement is needed', LSE Impact of the Social Sciences Blog, 22 August 2011.