Paul Wouters is professor of scientometrics and Dean of the Leiden University Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences.

More information about Paul Wouters

Short CV

He has a Masters in biochemistry (Free University of Amsterdam, 1977) and a PhD in science and technology studies (University of Amsterdam, 1999). In between these degrees he has worked as science journalist and as editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper ("De Waarheid").
He was Principal Investigator of several European research consortia, among others ACUMEN on research careers and evaluation of individual researchers. Paul was coordinator of the Dutch STS Graduate School Science, Technology, and Modern Culture (WTMC) together with Annemiek Nelis (2001-2005). From 2014 until 2019 he was chair of the WTMC board. In 1999, he helped create Onderzoek Nederland, a leading professional journal on Dutch science policy (part of Research Professional) and has since published in the journal.

Research

He has published on the history of the Science Citation Index, on and in scientometrics, and on the way the criteria of scientific quality and relevance have been changed by the use of performance indicators. His PhD thesis is titled "The Citation Culture" (1999). He has also studied the role of information and information technologies in the creation of new scientific and scholarly knowledge. In this area, he was appointed as leader of 2 research programmes by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences: Networked Research and Digital Information (Nerdi) (2000 - 2005) and The Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences (VKS) (2005 - 2010). The experiences and insights gained in the VKS were condensed in Virtual Knowledge. Experimenting in the Humanities and Social Sciences, a collection edited in collaboration with Anne Beaulieu, Andrea Scharnhorst and Sally Wyatt (MIT Press 2013).

Memberships

 He is a member of the editorial board of Social Studies of Science, Journal of the Association of Information Science and Technology, and Cybermetrics. Was member of the Council of the Society for the Social Studies of Science from 2006 to 2008, and sits on various advisory boards of international programmes and projects. He is member of the programme board of the ZonMW programme to promote responsible research behaviour (in Dutch). He is also member of the international advisory board of the Network for Advancing and Evaluating the Societal Impact of Science (AESIS Network).

Publications