This study is framed in the debate concerning the measurement of academic performance, and
particularly the strand of studies that explores the risks associated with the metrification of
research. The objective, guided by the conceptual framework of the banality of evil (Arendt,
1964), is to delve into how research evaluation can shape banal and unoriginal evaluative
practices. These practices, in turn, can trigger a fatally efficient machine within the academic
system and institutions, and among researchers.
The paper focuses on examining the recently concluded Research Quality Assessment
2015–2019 (VQR3) exercise in Italy, using an autoethnographic approach. The results highlight
the risks stemming from the growing dependence of research quality assessment on automatisms,
which can cause its commodification at the cost of intellectual innovation and, eventually, force
actors to conform to the rules of the game.
This work contributes to the ongoing academic debate by offering an innovative and multilevel
(i.e. macro, meso and micro) theoretical perspective. Not only does this perspective conceptualise
and present the dynamics, processes, instruments and actors at play in the phenomena under
scrutiny but also provides a deeper understanding of the dynamics that promote the widespread
application of research evaluation systems, despite their well-known weaknesses and potentially
undesirable practical and ethical effects.