In order for a university academic staff to be promoted to a higher rank (i.e., from a university lecturer to a professor, for example), what counts as major evaluation criteria (in an Iranian context as well as many others) is the research carried out. The fact that the quality of research should gain priority over its quantity necessitates its value to be properly determined through appropriate quality assurance measures so that not all staff with the same ‘number’ of research studies will receive the same type of promotion. Accordingly, evaluating education in higher education centres (which involves assessing their staff and the research produced by them) is vital for promoting high-quality research (and researchers) and contributing to the production of original knowledge. Conducting the task properly will bring about desirable improvements; disaster may follow, however, when there are no clear-cut professional standards to be used for judgement purposes. Although some scholars believe that there is “little agreement about what constitutes ‘quality’ in a research publication …, nor how ‘quality’ can be recognized or measured’ (Clyde, 2006: 181), the criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of research activities are more or less established across different disciplines (Irwin, 2006) and there are well-established standards and guidelines as to internal and external quality assurance in higher education (for example, European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, 2005). The purpose of this paper is to reveal whether any of the criteria experts use to assess the quality of research such as its peer-reviewed nature and journal prestige (Mansilla, 2006) are adhered to in my context and other research centers in Iran, and raise serious questions about a 'metric' yardstick (in which the focus of evaluation is the ‘quantity’ rather than ‘quality’ of research). In order to find out whether the ‘metric’ system of evaluation was specific to my context and whether research was evaluated in other institutes of higher education in Iran (and if so, whether the practice was similar to established norms in other countries), a survey was carried out. The findings of an investigation (on the status of research evaluation across higher education research institutes in Iran) with 80 English language professionals are reported. The criteria used by evaluators in the study indicate how disadvantaged Iranian higher education researchers are and calls for international sympathy are therefore voiced for helping them to receive a fair treatment.

The participants of this study include 80 English language professionals teaching and/or researching English language at different levels in Iran’s colleges and universities, including Open University, Teheran University, Shiraz University, Tabriz University, Isfahan University, Ministry of Education, and numerous language centers. A questionnaire was developed with both open-ended and forced-choice items. The questionnaire included an introductory part where the respondents were asked for some demographic information and two main parts in which the candidates had to either answer some open-ended questions on whether their research is ever evaluated in their institution and who does the evaluation and how it is done. The closed part of the questionnaire listed 25 criteria used in different places for evaluating research (including those used by Thomson Scientific for ISI journal selection and the references cited above) and some more added by the researcher himself.

While 25 % of the candidates noted that research is never evaluated in their institution, an equal number of respondents reported that the Head of the Department was the person in charge. The Dean of the Faculty, and Colleagues received 10 per cent each, and the rest (30 %) felt that a committee of two or three consisting of different members of the organization (usually chaired by the Vice Chancellor for Research, who in 85 % of the cases is a non-specialist and whose decision in 50 % of the cases is final).The implications of the findings are far-reaching. While there is no concern for assuring quality in a good number of Iranian higher education centres, the rest enjoy a faulty internal evaluation and there is no evidence of and desire for external attempts for quality assurance in any centre. *** continues in References