AGORRA (A Global Observatory of Responsible Research Assessment) is a project of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) that builds comparative data and evidence on how countries structure their national research-assessment and funding systems. Where CASRAI’s country-specific guides describe one system in depth — France’s HCÉRÉS, for example — AGORRA exists to do the opposite: track many systems side by side, on a common framework, as an ongoing, updating resource rather than a one-time write-up. This guide covers what AGORRA is, how RoRI structures the project, its flagship Atlas of Assessment tool, and how it relates to CoARA and DORA, the two reform-commitment frameworks it is most often mentioned alongside.
What is AGORRA?
AGORRA is short for A Global Observatory of Responsible Research Assessment. RoRI describes its purpose as generating comparative data, evidence, and analysis to support and accelerate responsible research assessment (RRA) reform at national scale, while explicitly complementing — not duplicating — global commitment initiatives such as CoARA and DORA. The project launched in 2023.
RoRI defines responsible research assessment as an effort to expand the concepts of quality and excellence used to judge research, with the goal of creating incentives that improve research cultures and environments rather than narrowly rewarding publication counts or journal-based metrics. AGORRA’s role in that agenda is empirical: rather than asking institutions to sign a set of principles (as CoARA does) or endorsing a set of practices (as DORA does), it documents what assessment and funding systems actually look like, country by country, and how they change over time.
Who runs AGORRA: RoRI in brief
The Research on Research Institute (RoRI) is a nonprofit community interest company hosted at STEaPP (Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy) at University College London. RoRI describes its mission as accelerating "transformative research on research systems, cultures and decision-making through metascientific methods, data and evidence," and operates as a partnership rather than a single-institution lab — it lists dozens of partner organizations across more than 20 countries, spanning funders, universities, and policy bodies (these partner counts are reported by RoRI itself and change as the network grows, so treat any specific figure as a snapshot rather than a fixed number). AGORRA is one of several RoRI project workstreams, sitting alongside RoRI’s broader metascience research on funding allocation, peer review, and research culture.
How AGORRA is structured
RoRI organizes AGORRA into three linked workstreams:
- Atlas of Assessment — an observatory that maps national research-assessment and funding systems and records how they change over time (see below).
- Next-generation assessment — work examining newer approaches to assessment, including alternative indicators, dashboards, and more real-time or continuous forms of evaluation, as possible alternatives to periodic, metrics-heavy exercises.
- Indicators of Research Culture and Environment (IRCE) — work on how research culture and environment — not just research output — can be monitored and factored into assessment.
Together, these workstreams position AGORRA as a research and infrastructure project rather than a single publication: its outputs include working papers, survey reports, and the standing Atlas database itself, updated as new evidence comes in rather than issued once and left static.
The Atlas of Assessment
The Atlas of Assessment is AGORRA’s primary public-facing output: a free, open-access tool that maps national research-assessment systems and tracks how they evolve over time, intended as a shared reference point for researchers, policymakers, funders, and institutional leaders working on assessment reform. It draws on contributions from policymakers and funding administrators in the countries it covers.
RoRI’s own materials describe the Atlas as, to their knowledge, the first large-scale project systematically comparing assessment-reform developments across countries, built from an initial cohort of national systems with the explicit intent of expanding coverage over time. A related RoRI working paper, A new typology of national research assessment systems: continuity and change in 13 countries (RoRI Working Paper No. 15, 2025), sets out the typology the Atlas uses to classify and compare systems. Because the Atlas is an actively expanding database rather than a fixed dataset, treat any specific country count as a snapshot at time of publication and check RoRI’s AGORRA project page directly for current coverage rather than relying on a cited figure to stay accurate indefinitely.
AGORRA vs. DORA and CoARA: observatory, not pledge
AGORRA is frequently discussed alongside DORA (the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and CoARA (the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment), because all three sit under the same responsible-research-assessment reform agenda. The role each plays is different, and distinguishing them matters for anyone deciding which resource actually answers their question:
- DORA and CoARA are commitment frameworks. Organizations sign or join them and, in CoARA’s case, commit to a shared set of principles and to publishing an institutional action plan. See CASRAI’s DORA vs CoARA comparison and the guide on how the two commitments compare for the mechanics of signing on and what each asks of a signatory.
- AGORRA is an observatory and evidence project. It does not ask anyone to sign anything. Instead, it documents what national assessment and funding systems actually do, offers a comparative typology for classifying them, and tracks how they change — including, implicitly, whether CoARA/DORA commitments are translating into real changes in national policy.
In practice, the three are complementary layers of the same reform movement: CoARA and DORA articulate what responsible assessment should look like and secure institutional buy-in; AGORRA supplies the comparative evidence base for judging whether assessment systems are actually moving in that direction. For readers tracking how signatory institutions translate commitments into practice, CASRAI’s guide on how institutions are rewriting promotion and tenure criteria covers that implementation layer directly.
How AGORRA complements country-specific research-evaluation guides
CASRAI already covers individual national and institutional research-evaluation systems in depth — for example, the Research Evaluation Framework guide, which compares major evaluation models, and the guide on France’s HCÉRÉS. AGORRA is not a substitute for that kind of page-per-system depth — it does something a single-country guide structurally cannot: hold many systems up to the same comparative typology at once, and keep that comparison current as systems reform. A research administrator benchmarking their own institution’s evaluation approach against international practice, or a policymaker scoping a national assessment reform, is better served starting with AGORRA’s cross-country view and then reading the relevant country-specific guide for implementation detail — rather than trying to reconstruct a multi-country comparison from separate single-country sources.
Who uses AGORRA
RoRI positions AGORRA’s outputs for a mixed audience: researchers studying assessment systems, policymakers designing or reforming national frameworks, research funders benchmarking their own practice, and institutional leaders (research offices, national research councils, university leadership) making the case for reform using comparative evidence rather than a single domestic reference point. For research administrators specifically, AGORRA is most useful as a source of comparative context — how does "normal" assessment practice elsewhere compare to what your own institution or national system does — rather than as a compliance or reporting tool.
Frequently asked questions
Is AGORRA the same thing as the Atlas of Assessment?
No. AGORRA is the overall RoRI project (three workstreams: Atlas of Assessment, next-generation assessment, and Indicators of Research Culture and Environment). The Atlas of Assessment is AGORRA’s flagship public database and the workstream most people mean when they refer to "AGORRA" informally.
Does AGORRA replace DORA or CoARA?
No. DORA and CoARA are commitment frameworks organizations sign onto; AGORRA is a research observatory that documents and compares actual national assessment systems. They are designed to complement each other, not substitute for one another.
How many countries does AGORRA cover?
RoRI’s published typology work covers an initial cohort of 13 countries, with RoRI’s own materials describing the Atlas as an actively expanding database rather than a fixed dataset. Check RoRI’s AGORRA project page directly for current coverage, since this figure is expected to change as the project continues.
Who funds and hosts AGORRA?
AGORRA is a project of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), a nonprofit community interest company hosted at UCL STEaPP and run as a multi-partner consortium; specific funder and partner details are published on RoRI’s own site.
Is the Atlas of Assessment free to use?
Yes — RoRI describes it as a free, open-access tool.
