Study on Academic Financialization Presented at RESSH 2026

The paper entitled Research Evaluation as Academic Financialization: How Banking Logics Reshape the Social Sciences and Humanities, co-authored by TED University English Language School instructor Nihan Soycan and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zehra Taşkın, was presented at RESSH 2026 – Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and Humanities Conference, held on April 22–24, 2026, in Florence, Italy.

Produced as part of a research project supported by the TÜBİTAK 1001 Program, the study examines academic publishing and research evaluation processes through the concept of “academic financialization.” The paper discusses how quantitative indicators such as publication counts, citation counts, and journal-based rankings transform academic behavior and knowledge production. It also draws attention to how metric-driven systems may disadvantage long-term, context-sensitive, and critical research, particularly in the social sciences and humanities.

The study emphasizes the need to rethink research evaluation systems to protect scientific autonomy, epistemic diversity, and the social value of knowledge.