In March 2026, the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced that it would no longer update or release its Journal Ranking Tables (also known as the CAS journal ranking lists) from that year. While superficially a technical adjustment, this decision in fact reveals a deep crisis within the current research evaluation system. As the direction of reform shifts toward “evaluating research based on its contribution to society”, a fundamental question is brought to the fore: What constitutes “contribution”? This paper argues that the existing evaluation system contains a fundamental blind spot. It only quantifies and assesses researchers’ tangible outputs such as papers, patents, and awards, while ignoring a critical and continuously operating dimension of social impact. Specifically, as a human being, a researcher exerts a sustained influence on the physical and mental health and cognition of those around them through their own physical and mental state, defined here as the “human environment”. Through this everyday interpersonal interaction, this influence profoundly shapes the development of families, organizations, and even society as a whole. The existing evaluation system fails to see this kind of impact because it lacks an understanding of the mechanism by which “the human being itself functions as an environment”. This paper does not attempt to provide a complete evaluation framework. Its value lies in identifying the aforementioned blind spot and highlighting a necessary path to address it. To fill this blind spot, cross-disciplinary collaboration is required to rebuild a basic consensus on the “laws of life development”. This consensus should prioritize exploring the mechanisms by which an individual’s physical and mental state constitutes a “human environment”. It should also clarify how such an environment influences those nearby and how it accordingly promotes or hinders the sustainable development of collective life. In addition, it should address how to foster innovative capacity at both individual and collective levels. Only on the basis of such a consensus can a new evaluation system be established – one genuinely grounded in the criterion of “Whether it promotes the sustainable development of life”.
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Share and Cite
Ding, Y., Zhang, Y. (2026) From “Journal-based Evaluation” to “Contribution-Based Assessment” – Why a Prior Consensus on the “Laws of Life Development” Must Be Rebuilt. Journal of Social Development and History, 2(1), 47-51. https://doi.org/10.71052/jsdh/CZAE3901