Abstract

A few years ago we had, in Spain, various products for evaluating journals that were useful to researchers and to the Spanish accreditation agencies: Aneca and Cneai. Given the number of products, various research groups collaborated to create a single, unified product: Clasificación integrada de revistas científicas (CIRC) (Integrated classification of scientific journals) with the aim of using it with current research information systems (CRIS). The CIRC classification gave each journal a score (A, B, C, D) and was last updated in 2012. EC3metrics is now announcing the launch of a new CIRC version updated for the current situation, while trying to rescue the original intention of the first version that emphasized CRIS integration. This article describes some of the improvements and changes that have been made in the newly updated version.

Abstract

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) or Shanghai Ranking is a de facto standard to determine the position of universities worldwide. Improving ranking positions has become the goal of universities and governments. No wonder therefore that the aggregation of universities in Spain is nowadays suggested as a means to raise the international profile of our university system. In this context, the goal of this study was to test two potential groupings, universities belongingto the same Autonomous Community and campuses of international excellence (CEIs), to determine the ARWU placement that would result. To compute the ARWU indicators of these possible groupings, we used the methodology developed in Docampo (2012b). The results of our analysis clearly show the difficulty of improving ranking positions by calculating the sum of aggregated institutions. As a matter of fact, the only way to place a university cluster from Spain in the top 100 would be to treat all of the Catalan universities as a single institution. The next best ranking for Spain would be achieved by the Habitat 5U (universities of Comunidad Valenciana), BKC (Barcelona and Politècnica de Catalunya) and VLC/Campus (Valencia and Politécnica de Valencia), CEIs which would lie in the 150-200 range.

Abstract

Although innovation is a key factor for the survival of enterprises, its situation in Spain is still far from the objectives set by the Lisbon Strategy. As a consequence the Spanish public administrations have launched various measures to improve it. Innovation requires acquiring and selecting the best information available, which means mainly using scientific and technical databases, but they are little known in the business environment. The article gives a brief overview of the use of information for innovation in enterprises and comments on the main findings of 2008 Cotec Report