The Commission signs the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and endorses the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment

Today, the Commission has signed the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. The Agreement sets a common direction for changes in assessment practices for research, researchers and research organisations, with the goal to maximise the quality and impact of research. It covers the principles, commitments and timeframe for reforms and lays out the principles for the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). The Coalition is a group of organisations willing to work together to implement the reform. The Coalition’s establishment is one of the main expected outcomes of the European Research Area (ERA) Policy Agenda for 2022-2024, which includes an action to advance the reform of the assessment system for research, researchers and institutions.

Together with the Agreement’s signature, today also marked the Commission’s endorsement of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment(DORA), which sets recommendations to improve the evaluation of researchers and the outputs of scholarly research. The Commission signed the Agreement and endorsed DORA in its capacity of a research funding organisation.

Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:

“The signature of the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and the endorsement of the DORA Declaration are a sign of the European Commission’s strong commitment to pave the way towards a reform of research assessment practices. Implementing changes is crucial to foster a research culture that recognises the diversity of contributions that maximise the quality and impact of research”.

Background

The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment was published on 20 July 2022 and was officially announced for signature during the European Research and Innovation Days 2022.  It is the result of a co-creation process involving more than 350 organisations from 40 countries. More than 100 signatories from 25 countries, as well as European and global organisations, have already signed the Agreement and this number continues to grow.

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) was developed in 2012.  It makes a number of recommendations for improving the way in which the quality of research outputs is evaluated. The overall goal is to reduce dependence on journal-based metrics such as journal impact measures and citations towards a culture where importance is placed on the intrinsic value of research.

More information

Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment

San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

Press contact:

EC Spokesperson for Research, Science and Innovation