During the 2022 European Research & Innovation Days, parties gathered to celebrate the opening for signature of an Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. Silvia Bottaro, Policy Officer at the European Commission, tells us why this will be a game changer, and how Open Research Europe is already supporting a shift in the culture of research assessment. 

Rewarding researchers’ diverse contributions 

Is there a problem with research assessment today? There is wide agreement that the response is ‘yes’, and that changes are needed to support the quality and resulting impacts of research. Today, the assessment of researchers, research projects, research units and organisations are largely based on a narrow set of indicators: mostly the quantity of publications, and the perceived prestige of the venue where these are published.  

But researchers’ contributions mean more than this. That is why, besides publications, we need to value the diversity of outputs, such as datasets, software or protocols, and also the variety of activities and practices in a researcher’s career, including those that contribute to openness and transparency of research and its overall process.   

It is important to support the quality, integrity and rigour of research. And to promote a supportive research environment, where collaboration is encouraged, and where researchers are stimulated to pursue what is good for science, without this being in contradiction with what is good for their careers. Is a change possible? Here again the response is ‘yes’. Although many organisations have already started to implement changes, progress has remained slow and fragmented. That is where the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment comes into play.  

Time for action  

The Agreement was published on 20 July 2022 (please view our previous blog for more info) and is the result of a wide co-creation process involving more than 350 organisations from over 40 countries. These included the main stakeholders involved with research assessment such as universities, funders, researchers’ organisations, national and regional authorities and assessment agencies, and other relevant organisations. The European Commission has been acting as a facilitator in this process as reforming research assessment is a key political priority under the European Research Area and is fully aligned with the research and innovation framework programme supported by Horizon Europe.  

The Agreement was officially opened for signature on 28 September 2022, during the European Research & Innovation Days. Early signatories include CERN, the Marie Curie Alumni Association, and of course ORE partners Eurodoc and the Global Young Academy. We hope that many more will join this movement for change! 

The Agreement is not just another declaration. It contains ten concrete commitments for change, that signatories will agree to implement against a defined timeframe. Starting in December 2022, a Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) will support signatories to implement the Agreement, by facilitating mutual learning and sharing of experiences.   

Open Research Europe as a frontrunner in driving change 

Open Research Europe supports changes to research assessment in various ways which relate to its current innovative practices to scholarly communication. The Agreement would contribute to mainstream practices that support robustness, openness and transparency of research and the research process. Open Research Europe already implements many of these practices, such as: 

• Supporting the recognition of diverse contributions to research by using an innovative post-publication open peer review model where each review can be cited independently from the articles – Open Research Europe currently accepts 14 different article types! 
• The Platform’s open data policy promotes the broadest reuse of research data thus contributing to reproducibility, rigor and integrity. 
• With no Journal Impact Factor, it supports the abandonment of inappropriate journal- and publication-based metrics such as Journal Impact Factor (JIF), instead promoting the responsible use of individual article indicators. 

As an author or a peer reviewer in Open Research Europe, you are actively contributing to driving changes in research assessment. You are among the frontrunners of practices we will likely see more mainstreamed in the future. Please watch the European Research Area talk featuring Toma Susi, ORE Scientific Advisory Board member, to find out more about the Reform of Research Assessment.

The agreement is officially open for signature to organisations from across the world! Visit the Agreement via the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment website to sign the Agreement today!