  In recent years, evaluation of the quality of academic research has become an
increasingly important and influential business. It determines, often to a
large extent, the amount of research funding flowing into universities and
similar institutes from governmental agencies and it impacts upon academic
careers. Policy makers are becoming increasingly reliant upon, and influenced
by, the outcomes of such evaluations. In response, university managers are
increasingly attracted to simple indicators as guides to the dynamics of the
positions of their various institutions in league tables. However, these league
tables are frequently drawn up by inexpert bodies such as newspapers and
magazines, using rather arbitrary measures and criteria. Terms such as
"critical mass' and "metrics" are often bandied about without proper
understanding of what they actually mean. Rather than accepting the rise and
fall of universities, departments and individuals on a turbulent sea of
arbitrary measures, we suggest it is incumbent upon the scientific community
itself to clarify their nature. Here we report on recent attempts to do that by
properly defining critical mass and showing how group size influences research
quality. We also examine currently predominant metrics and show that these fail
as reliable indicators of group research quality.
