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The objective of this article is to contribute to the emerging attempts to foster empirical, quantitative approaches to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), and to provide a low-resolution map of the European RRI landscape, which can serve as a vehicle for international learning. The article presents indicators of RRI aimed at characterising countries. It examines the empirical structure of the data collected in the 'Monitoring the evolution and benefits of Responsible Research and Innovation' (MoRRI) project and reports patterns across Europe. Factor analysis is applied to identify 11 empirically-anchored dimensions of RRI. Based on indices for these dimensions, cluster analysis reveals four distinct clusters of countries. These results point to diversity regarding the empirically-manifest components of RRI as well as diversity in the RRI profiles of the 28 European Union Member States.

In 2013, the European Union (EU) unveiled its new 'Composite Indicator for Scientific and Technological Research Excellence'. This is not an isolated occurrence; policy-based interest in excellence is growing all over the world. The heightened focus on excellence and, in particular, attempts to define it through quantitative indicators can have important implications for research policy and for the conduct of research itself. This paper examines how the EU's understanding of excellence has evolved in recent years, from the presentation of the Lisbon strategy in 2000 to the current Europe 2020 strategy. We find a distinct shift in the understanding of excellence and how success in the knowledge-based economy should be achieved: in the early period, excellence is a fuzzy concept, intrinsically embedded in research and researchers and revealed by peer review. In the later period, excellence is more sharply defined and connected with a particular sort of knowledge that which produces breakthroughs; the result is that policy-makers have turned their focus towards directly steering and controlling what is increasingly considered to be the key element for success in the knowledge-based economy. This change is evidenced by the 'Composite Indicator for Scientific and Technological Research Excellence', its rationale and its components.

Quality in higher education is–and has been for many years - at the top of the political agenda. The concept of quality has been explored extensively in the literature as has the means to measure and monitor quality. Connected to these two literatures is a widespread and somewhat fragmented literature on what might initially be termed quality work. This article reviews this literature on quality work in higher education. We characterise the work in this field, its main themes, issues and questions, and discuss what this literature has to say on the effects of quality work. Based on a systematic search for the period 2008-2018, we review 68 publications. The review shows that the literature on quality work can be categorised into three major areas: the role of institutional conditions for quality work, types of quality work practices, and notions of quality and quality outcomes. The review demonstrates that there is a need for more inclusive methodologies and longitudinal studies, particularly more rigorous quantitative analysis of the effects of quality work to supplement other methods.

The emphasis on competitiveness and the knowledge-based economy in European policymaking has resulted in a heightened focus on monitoring and steering the science system, particularly through metric-based instruments. Policymakers' general aims of fostering excellent research and breakthroughs are shared by researchers as well; however, below the surface is a paradox that is rarely discussed. The political system and the science system understand and pursue these concepts and objectives differently. Through two case studies on high-performing university-based research environments in Denmark and Sweden, this article uncovers the ways in which highly successful researchers often behave in ways that run counter to policy steering attempts. They do this by shielding themselves and their research group from steering pressures originating in the political system. Using Luhmann's systems theory, the cases demonstrate why the relationship between the science system and the political system needs to be understood as a horizontal rather than a vertical relationship, and using concepts from organizational theory, provides a model and terminology for identifying and analyzing the types of mechanisms and strategic responses that the science system uses to shield itself from political steering pressures.