We live in an age of metrics. All around us, things are beingstandardized, quantified, measured. Scholars concerned with the workof science and technology must regard this as a fascinating andcrucial practical, cultural and intellectual phenomenon. Analysis ofthe roots and meaning of metrics and metrology has been apreoccupation of much of the best work in our field for the pastquarter century at least. As practitioners of the interconnecteddisciplines that make up the field of science studies we understandhow significant, contingent and uncertain can be the process ofrendering nature and society in grades, classes and numbers.
We nowconfront a situation in which our own research work is beingsubjected to putatively precise accountancy by arbitrary andunaccountable agencies. Some may already be aware of the proposedEuropean Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH), an initiativeoriginating with the European Science Foundation. The ERIH is anattempt to grade journals in the humanities - including "historyand philosophy of science". The initiative proposes a leaguetable of academic journals, with premier, second and third divisions.According to the European Science Foundation, ERIH "aimsinitially to identify, and gain more visibility for, top-qualityEuropean Humanities research published in academic journals in,potentially, all European languages". It is hoped "thatERIH will form the backbone of a fully-fledged research informationsystem for the Humanities". What is meant, however, is that ERIHwill provide funding bodies and other agencies in Europe andelsewhere with an allegedly exact measure of research quality. Inshort, if research is published in a premier league journal it willbe recognized as first rate; if it appears somewhere in the lowerdivisions, it will be rated (and not funded) accordingly.
Thisinitiative is entirely defective in conception and execution.Consider the major issues of accountability and transparency. Theprocess of producing the graded list of journals in science studieswas overseen by a committee of four (the membership is currentlylisted athttp://www.esf.org/research-areas/humanities/research-infrastructures-including-erih/erih-governance-and-panels/erih-expert-panels.html).This committee cannot be considered representative. It was notselected in consultation with any of the various disciplinaryorganizations that currently represent our field such as the EuropeanAssociation for the History of Medicine and Health, the Society forthe Social History of Medicine, the British Society for the Historyof Science, the History of Science Society, the Philosophy of ScienceAssociation, the Society for the History of Technology or the Societyfor Social Studies of Science. Journal editors were only belatedlyinformed of the process and its relevant criteria or asked to provideany information regarding their publications. No indication was givenof the means through which the list was compiled; nor how it might bemaintained in the future.
The ERIHdepends on a fundamental misunderstanding of conduct and publicationof research in our field, and in the humanities in general. Journals'quality cannot be separated from their contents and their reviewprocesses. Great research may be published anywhere and in anylanguage. Truly ground-breaking work may be more likely to appearfrom marginal, dissident or unexpected sources, rather than from awell-established and entrenched mainstream journal. Our journals arevarious, heterogeneous and distinct. Some are aimed at a broad,general and international readership, others are more specialized intheir content and implied audience. Their scope and readership saynothing about the quality of their intellectual content. The ERIH, onthe other hand, confuses internationality with quality in a way thatis particularly prejudicial to specialist and non-English languagejournals. In a recent report, the British Academy, with judiciousunderstatement, concludes that "the European Reference Index forthe Humanities as presently conceived does not represent a reliableway in which metrics of peer-reviewed publications can beconstructed" (Peer Review: the Challenges for the Humanities andSocial Sciences, September 2007:http://www.britac.ac.uk/reports/peer-review).
Suchexercises as ERIH can become self- fulfilling prophecies. If suchmeasures as ERIH are adopted as metrics by funding and otheragencies, then many in our field will conclude that they have littlechoice other than to limit their publications to journals in thepremier division. We will sustain fewer journals, much less diversityand impoverish our discipline. Along with many others in our field,this Journal has concluded that we want no part of this dangerous andmisguided exercise. This joint Editorial is being published injournals across the fields of history of science and science studiesas an expression of our collective dissent and our refusal to allowour field to be managed and appraised in this fashion. We have askedthe compilers of the ERIH to remove our journals' titles from theirlists.