How do early career researchers perceive success in their fields? – report on interviews with humanists, theologians and scientists-artists in Poland

Purpose: This paper presents the Polish researchers’ opinions on success perception in science and examines the role of bibliometric and altmetric indices/metrics. It also provides respondents’ statements on how their work is evaluated at Polish universities.Methods: The data come from in-depth interviews (spring 2023) with early career researchers in Linguistics, Literary Studies, History, Philosophy, Polish studies, Theology, Arts, Music, Plastic/Fine Arts, and Film.Results: The respondents’ attachment to indices used in the periodical evaluation of scholars at Polish universities, such as the number of publications, ministerial score points, and external grants, was observed. The respondents were critical of citations as the determinant of success. They were generally not very interested in altmetrics.Value: The importance of this research (National Science Centre grant No 2022/45/B/HS2/00041), which is the Polish continuation of the two international projects (2016–2022), lies mainly in providing a platform to researchers in art and humanities, not included in earlier studies devoted to the sciences and social sciences.