Publication strategies more and more are regarded as a crucial factor for an academic advancement. However, it is not only the quality of publication as assessed by peers, but also the quality of publication as indicated by quantitative measurement, e.g. by bibliometrics or journals’ reputational ranking lists. The standardized use of these instruments of evaluation and assessing research quality differ according to national research cultures as well as to academic disciplines.

It is of high interest for universities, to introduce emerging researchers into these new strategies of publishing and of performance assessment. They have a vital interest to support and coach doctoral students in order to produce ‘visible excellence’. Such initiatives, additionally, provoke – in a diachronic perspective – transitions of valuing and evaluating research quality from the past to the future. They tend to create conflicting situations, especially when competition and academic careers are considered. These initiatives, however, also provoke – seen from a synchronic perspective – transitions, when different research cultures, definitions of quality and evaluation cultures interact and compete.

The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy, serves as our experiential background to reflect on the multifaceted paradoxes, challenges and conflicts arising from the problems mentioned beforehand. This institution is a small, multilingual, performance oriented university. It works under special legal and political conditions, it officially includes three different cultural language groups – German, Italian, Ladin –, and it expresses its international and multilingual orientation by the consistent use of three languages in teaching and research: German, Italian, English. Of special interest for our investigation is the faculty of education, especially the field of teacher education and educational research. 

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