Research Assessment as Gendered and Gendering Practices

Research assessment schemes are widespread and provide a means of evaluating and ranking the research performance of universities and academics. However, they remain controversial, with debate about what is measured, how and with what effect. Despite burgeoning literature on research assessment in all its various forms, comparatively little directly addresses the relationship between research assessment and gender. In this chapter we seek to contribute to understandings of the ways in which research assessment processes and practices are both gendered and gendering. To do so we consider the overarching policy frames in higher education which inform the institutional practices in response, research practices of individuals and teams of academics, and how both have gendered assumptions. We draw on data from fieldwork conducted separately in Australia and in Denmark during the past 10 years to consider how shifts towards countable research outputs lead some academics to change their research practices to fit ‘what counts’, exacerbating gender inequality in knowledge production in ways that often go unrecognised.