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The Italian Research Evaluation assessment for the period 2004-10 (VQR 2004-10) has analyzed almost 185,000 articles, books, patents, and other scientific outcomes submitted for evaluation by Italian universities and other public research bodies. This article describes the main features of this exercise, introducing its legal framework and the criteria used for evaluation. The innovative methodology that has been used for evaluation, based on a combination of peer review and bibliometric methods, is discussed and indicators for assessing the quality of participating research bodies are derived accordingly. The article also presents the main results obtained at the University level, trying to understand the existing relationship among research quality and University characteristics such as location, dimension, age, scientific specialization, and funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of the Italian Quality Research Assessment VQR 2004-10 in the area of Sociology were characterized by the scarcity of excellent ratings and a lack of consensus among referees. These two aspects, which affected the assessment of all social sciences and humanities, descend directly from the use of the peer review as a method of evaluation. As a matter of fact, peer review, although irreplaceable, poses different issues on which critical thinking is needed. In this paper, I aim to contribute to this discussion. Firstly, I focus on the system framework, i.e. an assessment exercise where in total almost 200,000 scientific publications from universities and research institutes have been analyzed. Then, the rules of the game have been reviewed and also the specific characters of the macro-area "14" where Sociology is located. The judgments formulated by the referees and the level of inter-rater agreement were descriptively considered, considering the main features of the referees, the publications and the authors. Finally, some possible interpretations are outlined together with recommendations for future improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]