Research Assessment

Today's research assessment processes, such as the award of tenure to researchers or recognition of project success, are often linked to the publication of research results in prestigious scientific journals. Prestige is often defined through the journal impact factor (JIF). But of course, the individual value of a specific scientific discovery has nothing to do with the average number of citations of the journal it's published in (definition of the JIF). And equally important aspects of open science that allow the reproducibility and reuse of research results, such as the release of research data or software needed to interpret them, are often not considered at all in the assessment processes. Therefore, a reform of research assessment practices is crucial to promote the values of open science. CERN is committed to supporting such a reform and has signed the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment as one of the early signatories, and consequently joined the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA).

Statement on Research Assessment in the CERN Open Science Policy

CERN is committed to collaborating with its Member and Associate Member States to incentivize quality-assured and reusable open science practices for research and career assessment. As part of this effort, CERN strives to support strategic discussions and implementation of community-specific rewards systems, such as responsible metrics covering the full diversity of the community's research outputs.

Currently, a CERN working group is being established to analyse all existing practices and policies to identify gaps with the CoARA principles. Based on the results, a roadmap will be created on how to address gaps and implement new, transparent, and fair research assessment practices. The roadmap will be made publicly available by at the latest by the end of 2023.

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