The Research Performance Evaluation within a Theoretical Framework of Complexity

The evaluation of research in higher education emerges as a means of assessing its performance, promoting its quality, and detecting its niches of excellence. The aim of this paper is to set out a general conceptual framework that can be used to instrument research performance assessment in higher education. Indeed, the performance of scientific research remains complex and difficult to circumvent, essentially due to its contingent, relative, multidimensional, all-encompassing, and integrating aspects. Our methodology is based on an exploratory approach, based essentially on an in-depth reading of a rich theoretical corpus questioning the performance of scientific research and its various facets, which has enabled us to create anastomoses between a number of academic writings. We tried to remove the ambiguity surrounding the meaning of search performance under its multidimensional character. As a result, ten facets of research performance are put forward namely, Research outputs quantity, Quality and satisfaction of academics, Sustainability and Social impact, Economic and financial facet, Technological facet, Organizational facet, Ethical facet, Internationalization, Partnership and effectiveness of the doctoral cycle.