Tools of individual evaluation and prestige recognition in Spain: how sexenio ‘mints the golden coin of authority'

Individual experiences in dealing with individual evaluations arestudied through a national documental analysis and qualitativeinterviews. The analysis considers three main individualassessments designed to measure individual credentials orperformance: sexenio (research and third mission), quinquenio(teaching) and acreditación (mix of all missions). The mainresearch question is to discuss if and how these tools changedthe way academic authority is recognized among scholars.Evidence shows that sexenio has played a relevant role andenacted a reconfiguration of authority among scholars,incentivizing more performing behaviors. In terms of missions,research is more important than teaching or third mission. Interms of tools, they don’t have the same degree of importance.Sexenio lays in having established by time a widely recognizedway – quoting Burton Clark – ‘to mint the golden coin ofindividual prestige’. Other tools, following the metaphor, maymint just less prestigious pence.