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Peter van den Besselaar

Peter is the research director at TMC Research and professor emeritus, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Organization Sciences.

His research focuses on the organization, governance and dynamics of science. Apart from that he is strongly interested in the use of computational methods and big data in social research.

Between 1982 and 2002, he was at the University of Amsterdam, the department of social informatics, first as assistant professor and then as associate professor. In 2002, he moved to the Royal Netherland Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), where he was director of the social science data archive (Steinmetz Archive) until 2005, and research director and head of the department of Science System Assessment until 2010. He combined these positions with an endowed communication science chair at the University of Amsterdam (2004-2009). Between 2009 and 2019, he had a (endowed) science policy research chair at the department of organizations sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he now is professor emeritus .

Peter studied mechanical engineering (propedeuse, TU Eindhoven), mathematics (BSc, University Utrecht) and philosophy (MA with honors, University of Amsterdam). He has a PhD in informatics (Faculty of Psychology, University of Amsterdam).

Reach me at

peter AT teresamom DOT com     –     p.a.a.vanden.besselaar AT vu DOT nl

Information at

ResearchGate  –  Google Scholar Citations  –  Publons  – ORCID  –  Scopus

research

recent projects

  • GRANteD project on gender disparities in receiving grants and in academic careers. A project funded by the European Commission under H2020.
  • Gender bias in awarding Cum Laude for PhD theses.
  • The dynamics of interdisciplinarity.
  • GendERC, a case study on gender bias in research grant allocation.

general

  • StukRoodVlees blog: Is het glazen plafond in de wetenschap plots verdwenen? Dat lijkt me sterk (July 16, 2019)
  • Nature Index: When breaking free is a mark of success. Two new measures aim to assess researchers’ independence from their former lab heads (October 3, 2018).
  • StukRoodVlees blog: Vrouwen met kinderen op achterstand bij onderzoeksbeurzen? (August 16, 2018)
  • LSE Impact blog: A vicious circle of gender bias has meant differneces between men’s and women’s scholarly productivity have not changed since the 1960s. (August 7, 2018)
  • Research Europe: Country comparison cast doubt on science policy orthodoxy (May 24, 2018)
  • Nature Index: Scientists get more bang for the buck if given more freedom (May 23, 2018)
  • Financieele Dagblad: De sexist in je hoofd (March 24, 2018)
  • LSE Impact blog: Quantity matters as citation impact increases with productivity (January 23, 2018)
  • Nature Index: Funding debate over paper quality vs quantity (September 21, 2017)
  • StukRoodVlees blog: Nieuwe cijfers – Wel degelijk een glazen plafond op alle niveaus van de Nederlandse wetenschap (December 1, 2015)

recent publications 2016-2020

(view the archive for earlier publications and projects)

2020

  • Idrissou A, Van Harmelen F, van den Besselaar P, (2020). Network Metrics for Assessing the Quality of Entity Resolution Between Multiple Datasets. Forthcoming in: Semantic Web Journal
  • Schiffbaenker H, Van den Besselaar P, Holzinger F (2020). Gender bias and excellence in peer review panels. Forthcoming in: Heike Kahlert (ed.) Inequalities and the Paradigm of Excellence in Academia.

2019

  • Oostveen, A-M, Van den Besselaar, P (2019) The academic debate on electronic voting in a socio-political context. In: Krimmer R et al (eds.) Proceedings of the Fourth International Joint Conference on Electronic Voting. October 1-4, 2019, Lochau/Bregenz, Austria.
  • Van den Besselaar P (2019) Publicatiedruk bestaat niet. In Beleid en Maatschappij 46, 175-178.
  • Van den Besselaar P, Sandström U, Measuring independence: A proposal for a new bibliometric indicator. PLoS ONE 14(3) e0202712
  • Van den Besselaar P, Sandström U (2019) Panel composition as pathway to impact: Do we need stakeholder expertise to select relevant mission-oriented projects? In: fteval Journal for Research and Technology Policy Evaluation, 48, 66-71.
  • Van der Wouden P, Van den Besselaar P, et al (2019), De inhoud van publicaties in het Nederland Tijdschrift voor Tandheelkunde – een patroon analyse over de tijd. Nederland Tijdschrift voor Tandheelkunde (NTVT) 126, 91-100.

2018

  • David F, Van den Sijde P, Van den Besselaar P (2018) Academics coping with business logic: a study at Indonesian universities. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management 49, 91–10.
  • Jonkers K, Fako P, Isella L, Zacharewicz T, Sandstrom U, Van den Besselaar P, A comparative analysis of the publication behaviour of MSCA fellows – Report JRC-EC.
  • Khalili A, van den Besselaar P, de Graaf KA (2018) FERASAT: a Serendipity-fostering Faceted Browser for Linked Data. In: A. Gangemi et al. (Eds.) ESWC 2018, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 10843, Springer-Nature, p. 351-366
  • Khalili A, van den Besselaar P, de Graaf KA (2018) Using linked open geo-boundaries for adaptive delineation of functional urban areas. In: A. Gangemi et al. (Eds.): ESWC 2018 Satellite Events, LNCS 11155, 327–341
  • Khalili A, van den Besselaar P, de Graaf KA (2018) FERASAT: a Serendipity-fostering Faceted Browser for Linked Data. In: A. Gangemi et al. (Eds.) ESWC 2018, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 10843, Springer-Nature, p. 351-366
  • Khalili A, van den Besselaar P, de Graaf KA (2018) Using linked open geo-boundaries for adaptive delineation of functional urban areas. In: A. Gangemi et al. (Eds.): ESWC 2018 Satellite Events, LNCS 11155, 327–341
  • Koudous Idrissou A, van den Besselaar P, van Harmelen F, Network Metrics for Assessing the Quality of Entity Resolution Between Multiple Datasets. Proc EKAW, LNCS 2018
  • Mom C, Sandström U, Van den Besselaar P (2018) Does Institutional proximity affects grant application success? STI 2018 Conference Proceedings, 1579-1585
  • Sandström U, Van den Besselaar P (2018) Funding, evaluation, and the performance of national research systems. Journal of Informetrics 12, 365-384
  • Van den Besselaar P, Sandström U (2018) Quantity matters, but how does it work? Journal of Informetrics 12, 1059-1062
  • Van den Besselaar P, Sandström U, Schiffbaenker H (2018), Using linguistic analysis of peer review reports to study panel processes. Scientometrics 117, 313-329 | PEERE 2018 best paper award
  • Van den Besselaar P, Schiffbaenker H, Sandström U, Mom, C, Explaining gender bias in ERC grant selection. STI 2018 Conference Proceedings, 346-352
  • Van den Besselaar P, Flecha R, Radauer A (2018) Monitoring the Impact of EU Framework Programmes. Brussels: European Commission.

2017

  • Expert group on evaluation methodologies for the interim and ex-post evaluation of Horizon 2020. Applying relevance-assessing methodologies to Horizon 2020. Luxembourg, European Commission, 2017. 267p
  • Jonkers K, Fako P, Isella L, Zacharewicz T, Sandstrom U, Van den Besselaar P, A comparative analysis of the publication behaviour of MSCA fellows, Proceedings STI conferentie 2017, Paris. TR4, 7 pp
  • Khalili A, van den Besselaar P, Koudous Idrissou A, De Graaf KA, van Harmelen F, Semantically Mapping Science (SMS) platform. In: Garijo D, van Hage WP, Kauppinen T, Kuhn T, Zhao J, Enabling Open Semantic Science. Proc SemSci 2017. October 21 2017 Vienna. CEUR-WS.org/Vol-1931. Urn:nbn:de:0074-1931-9
  • Khalili A, van Andel P, van den Besselaar P, de Graaf KA, Fostering Serendipitous Knowledge Discovery using an Adaptive Multigraph-based Faceted Browser. In Proceedings K-Cap. December 2017, Austin.
  • Khalili A, Koudous Idrissou A, van den Besselaar P, van Harmelen F, The SMS Platform. Deliverable D7.2
  • Koudous Idrissou A, Hoekstra R, van Harmelen F, Khalili A, van den Besselaar P. Is my: sameAs the same as your: sameAs? Lenticular Lenses for Context-Specific Identity. In Proceedings K-Cap. December 2017, Austin.
  • Schiffbaenker H, Van den Besselaar P, Evaluating ‘excellence’ in the ERC peer review process. In: FTEval Journal for research and innovation evaluation (2017) issue 43, pp 37-38
  • Schiffbaenker H & Van den Besselaar P. Gendered dimensions in ERC grant selection – final report of the GendERC project 610706. ERC, January 2017.
  • Van den Besselaar P, Sandström U, Influence of cognitive distance on grant decisions, Proceedings STI conferentie 2017, Paris. IS13, 7pp.
  • Van den Besselaar P, Investigating the quality of funding decisions. Research Evaluation 26 (2017) 53-54.
  • Van den Besselaar P, Sandström U, Counterintuitive effects of incentives. Research Evaluation 26 (2017) 349-351
  • Van den Besselaar P, Heyman U, Sandström U, Perverse effects of output-based research funding? Butler’s Australian case revisited, Journal of Informetrics 11 2017, 905-918
  • Van den Besselaar P, Heyman U, Sandström U, Do observations play a role in science policy studies. Journal of Informetrics 11 (2017) 941-944
  • Van den Besselaar P, Sandström U, Vicous circles of gender bias, lower positions and lower impact: gender differences in scholarly productivity and impact. PlosOne 12 (2017) 8: e0183301. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0183301
  • van den Besselaar P, Measuring scientific impact of Framework Programs. Report for the H2020 Expert group on evaluation methodologies. 2017, 10pp
  • van den Besselaar P, A user friendly tool for advanced portfolio analysis. Report for the H2020 Expert group on evaluation methodologies. 2017, 10pp
  • Van Woensel P, de Gilder D, van den Besselaar P, Groenewegen P, Managerial influence on attitude formation in organizations: how to manage emergence, Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory
  • Wen B, Horlings E, van der Zouwen M, van den Besselaar P, Mapping science through bibliometric triangulation: an experimental approach applied to water research, Journal of the American Association of Information Science and Technology 68 (2017) 3, pp724-738

2016

  • David F, van der Sijde P, van den Besselaar P, Entrepreneurial Incentives, Obstacles, and Management in University-Business Cooperation: The Case of Indonesia, in; Handbook of Research on Social Entrepreneurship and Solidarity Economics. IGI 2016
  • Idrissou AK, Khalili A, Hoekstra R, van den Besselaar P, Managing metadata for science, technology and innovation studies: The RISIS case. Alessandro Adamou, Enrico Daga, Leif Isaksen, Humanities in the Semantic Web; proceedings of the 1st WHiSE Workshop; Anissaras, Greece, May 29th, 2016. 15-20
  • Sandström U & van den Besselaar P (2016), Quantity and/or Quality? The importance of publishing many papers. PlosOne
  • van den Besselaar P, Correct assumptions? Journal of the American Association of Information Science and Technology 67 (2016) 1779-1779
  • van den Besselaar P, Sandström U, Gender differences in research performance and in academic careers. Scientometrics (2016) 106:143–162
  • van den Besselaar P, Sandström U, What is the required level of data cleaning? A research evaluation case, Journal of Scientometric Research 5 (2016) 1, 7-12.
  • van den Besselaar P, Sandstrom U, Heyman U, Science policy through stimulating scholarly output – Does is work? Ismael Rafols et al, Peripheries, Frontiers and Beyond; Proceedings STI 2016, Valencia
  • van den Besselaar P, Predicting panel scores by linguistic analysis. Ismael Rafols et al, Peripheries, Frontiers and Beyond; Proceedings STI 2016, Valencia
  • van den Besselaar P, Khalili A, Idrissou AK, Schlobach S, van Harmelen F, SMS: a linked open data infrastructure for science and innovation studies Ismael Rafols et al, Peripheries, Frontiers and Beyond; Proceedings STI, Valencia 2016.
  • van den Besselaar P, Khalili A, Idrissou AK, Schlobach S, van Harmelen F, Towards an open data infrastructure for STI data. OECD Blue Sky Conference, Gent, September 2016.

PhD students

  • Dennis Beckers
  • Bei Wen
  • Al Idrissou
  • Irene Sinteur (7 November 2018)
  • Firmansyah David (2017)
  • Tjerk Wardenaar (2015)
  • Pleun van Arensbergen (2014)
  • Thomas Gurney (2014)
  • Maaike Verbree (2011)
  • Anne-Marie Oostveen (2007)
  • Gaston Heimeriks (2005)
  • Carolien Metselaar (2000)