Research Assessment Reform

Why Research Assessment Reform?

Researchers and research projects deliver a wide range of valuable scientific results along the scientific discourse. This can include data sets, a new element of analysis software, teaching material, video documentations, new technologies and procedures and many other research artefacts. Yet, in today’s academic assessment practices, evaluations are primarily, or sometimes exclusively, focused on scientific papers. This sets misguiding incentives, can lead to inflationary publication practices and discourages open science practices. The problem is known for many years and was clearly described in the 2013 DORA declaration. However, only recently, concrete attempts are made to reform academic research practices.

The outputs from scientific research are many and varied, including: research articles reporting new knowledge, data, reagents, and software; intellectual property; and highly trained young scientists. Funding agencies, institutions that employ scientists, and scientists themselves, all have a desire, and need, to assess the quality and impact of scientific outputs. It is thus imperative that scientific output is measured accurately and evaluated wisely.

DORA – San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (2013)

CERN is committed to collaborating with its Member and Associate Member States to incentivise quality-assured and reusable open-science practices for research and career assessments. As part of this effort, CERN strives to support strategic discussions and implementation of community-specific reward systems, such as responsible metrics covering the full diversity of the community’s research outputs, moving away from primarily publication-based assessment practices. 

CoARA

The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) is an alliance of over 800 organizations dedicated to globally reforming research assessment by committing its signatory institutions to a set of core principles. The CoARA commitments focus on basing research assessment primarily on qualitative judgment, supported by the responsible use of quantitative indicators. In addition, they aim at recognising a diverse spectrum of activities in research assessment, including open science and teaching.

CoARA at CERN

CERN is an early signatory of CoARA and is committed to align its research assessment with the CoARA commitments. CoARA efforts at CERN not only include the promotion of qualitative types of research assessment, but the recognition of education, outreach and open-science activities in assessment procedures. Since public engagement and the open release of research outputs such as data, software and hardware designs can take considerable amounts of time, CoARA efforts at CERN aim to ensure these contributions are properly acknowledged in the assessment processes. This brochure describes CERN’s involvement with CoARA and is intended for those engaged in research assessment at CERN.