University in Transformation. Actors, Strategies and Scientific Production in the Sociological Area. A Local Case Study

In this article, we analyze changes resulting from the introduction of research evaluation mechanisms (VQR – Research Quality Assessment), the dynamics linked to the first two rounds of the ASN (National Scientific Habilitation), and the associated university policies that may have repercussions on the research practices and strategies of individual academics. The study presented here is based on a mixed methodology and focused on the sociological area of the University of Rome «Sapienza». The objective of the research is to reconstruct recent trends and changes in scientific production in relation to these evaluation policies (with a quantitative analysis based on administrative data). Special attention is dedicated to the increasing number of co-authored publications; through Social Network Analysis, we have generated a map of scientific collaboration, highlighting the most interconnected actors/nodes. The final aim of the research work was to depict the profound change in the strategies of researchers respect to new evaluation policies and, therefore, in a new set of behaviors in scientific production.