Dear Harry and others,
Otto, thanks for the article. As far as I know it is true. I was once told that a large and well known state university system promotes on the basis of admistrative ability, teaching ability and research ability. But the assumption is that all professors are good administrators and good teachers so the only thing left is research --- and that one can measure with a scale.
But there are professors in the US that care and are gifted teachers; happily, I have had to do with several of them.
But is the situation any different in Europe? Not that I have seen. What I have seen here is that politics sometimes seems to play an even more important role than research ; ) !
Indeed, the situation is identical in Europe (concerning research). However, from a German point of view I may state that politics doen't seem to play any role - maybe apart from some few positions in selected universities; I might also imagine that in some areas such as sociology etc. this could be a criterion. It is fortunately not important at all in computer science, for example. This can be proven by many examples. What becomes more and more important in Germany is administrative ability (since we have to do a lot of tasks which are done in the US universities by the powerful dean - a position which we don't have in Germany). Best regards Otto