‘21 Grams': Interdisciplinarity and the assessment of quality in the humanities

Abstract

In their joint contribution, the president of the German Association for English Studies (Deutscher Anglistenverband), Klaus Stierstorfer, and the president of the German Association for American Studies (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien), Peter Schneck, describe the central motivations behind the decision to actively support the pilot study for the research rating of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) despite some fundamental skepticism among the associations's members. On the basis of five basic propositions—different in each argument—they both insist that the assessment of research quality in the humanities inevitably requires the central involvement of the disciplines assessed in order to reflect on and formulate the central categories, standards and procedures best suited for such assessments. Such a process must take into account the complexity of research processes and results in the humanities whose qualitative dimensions cannot be fully measured by quantitative methods. © The Author(s) 2016.