The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) operates through national and regional chapters that coordinate how signatories in a given country interpret and implement the CoARA Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. Spain’s chapter, CoARA National Chapter Spain (NC Spain), was among the earlier national chapters to formally organise, and by March 2026 it was hosting CoARA’s own cross-chapter gathering, the 3rd National Chapters Exchange Forum, in Madrid. This guide covers how NC Spain was launched, who coordinates it, what its founding roster looked like, and what happened at the Madrid forum.
What CoARA National Chapter Spain Is
NC Spain is the country-level coordination body for Spanish organisations that have signed the CoARA Agreement. As with every CoARA national chapter, it does not hold signatory status separately from its members and does not set binding national policy on its own — each university, research centre, funding body, or evaluation agency that signs the CoARA Agreement commits individually to developing and publishing its own institutional action plan. The chapter’s role is to give Spain’s signatories a shared coordination structure: exchanging practice domestically, connecting to CoARA’s international thematic Working Groups, and representing Spain within the coalition’s cross-chapter activities.
Launch: February 2024
NC Spain was formally presented on 9 February 2024, at an event hosted at Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. The chapter is jointly coordinated by four national bodies rather than a single lead institution:
- CRUE (Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades Españolas / Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities) — the representative body for Spain’s university rectors.
- CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas / Spanish National Research Council) — Spain’s largest public research organisation.
- ISCIII (Instituto de Salud Carlos III / Carlos III Health Institute) — the national institute coordinating health and biomedical research.
- ANECA (Agencia Nacional de Evaluación de la Calidad y Acreditación / National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation) — Spain’s university quality-assessment and accreditation agency.
This four-way coordinating structure — spanning universities, a general research council, a health-research institute, and a quality-accreditation agency — reflects how research assessment in Spain touches multiple distinct national systems (higher education, public research, health research, and accreditation) that each needed a seat in the chapter’s leadership rather than being represented through a single coordinating university or ministry office, which is the more common pattern in some other CoARA national chapters.
Founding Membership
At its February 2024 launch, NC Spain reported 84 participating Spanish institutions, broken down as 58 universities, 12 quality agencies, 11 research centres, one research funding organisation, and two associations. This breadth — combining the bulk of Spain’s university system with quality-assurance agencies and research centres in a single national chapter — made NC Spain one of the larger national-chapter rosters at launch among CoARA’s founding wave of chapters.
As with every CoARA national chapter, this figure describes chapter affiliation at a point in time, not a guarantee that all 84 institutions have completed or published a compliant institutional action plan on the same timeline, and the roster can change as new organisations join. Readers who need the current, authoritative membership list should check coara.org’s Spain chapter page directly.
What NC Spain Commits To
NC Spain’s published priorities are organised around three of the numbered commitments in the CoARA Agreement itself:
- Commitment 6. Promoting the revision of research assessment criteria, standards, and processes to align with CoARA’s core principles, at the institutional and system level across Spain.
- Commitment 7. Actively engaging research organisations, funding bodies, and evaluation agencies in the reform process, reflecting the chapter’s own multi-agency coordinating structure.
- Commitment 8. Enabling mutual learning and exchange, both within the Spanish chapter and with CoARA’s international Working Groups and other national chapters.
In September 2025, NC Spain published its first collective report, Mapping Institutional Approaches to Research Assessment Reform, drawing on contributions from Spanish universities, research centres, and evaluation agencies to describe how member institutions were actually approaching implementation in practice — a step beyond the initial commitment toward documenting real institutional progress, consistent with Commitment 8’s emphasis on mutual learning.
The 3rd National Chapters Exchange Forum (Madrid, March 2026)
NC Spain’s coordinating group — CRUE, CSIC, ISCIII, and ANECA — co-hosted CoARA’s 3rd National Chapters Exchange Forum on 19-20 March 2026 at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). The event is CoARA’s recurring cross-chapter gathering, bringing together National Chapter co-chairs and representatives from across the coalition to compare implementation approaches; the Madrid edition drew representatives from roughly twenty countries and more than 90 stakeholders.
The forum’s theme was “Instruments for Success: National Chapters Driving Diverse Implementation Through a Shared Vision.” Discussion centred on building a shared understanding of the role national chapters play in CoARA’s next phase, translating coalition-wide principles into country-specific implementation, and strengthening coordination between national chapters and CoARA’s other working structures, including its thematic Working Groups and Cascade Funding projects.
Hosting the third edition of this forum is a marker of NC Spain’s standing within CoARA’s chapter network — it follows earlier editions and sits alongside other cross-chapter coordination activity that chapters including France, the United Kingdom, and Italy also participate in.
How NC Spain Compares to Other National Chapters
NC Spain’s four-body coordinating structure and 84-institution founding roster place it among CoARA’s larger and more institutionally diverse national chapters. For comparison, CASRAI has separate guides covering the France chapter (coordinated with agencies including ANR, CNRS, and INSERM alongside universities and HCERES), the United Kingdom chapter, the Italy chapter (a 59-institution roster under a 2025-27 work programme), and the Norwegian implementation model built around the Research Council of Norway and the NOR-CAM framework. Germany’s approach, coordinated through the DFG, is covered in a separate guide.
For the underlying reform commitments every CoARA signatory institution makes regardless of national chapter, see CASRAI’s guides on DORA and CoARA reform commitments compared and how institutions are rewriting promotion and tenure criteria under both frameworks, plus the direct DORA vs CoARA comparison.
Not to Be Confused With: Spain’s CEEI
NC Spain is sometimes conflated with the Comité Español de Ética de la Investigación (CEEI), Spain’s national advisory body on research ethics and scientific integrity, established by Royal Decree 53/2023. The two are unrelated bodies with different mandates: NC Spain coordinates Spanish institutions’ participation in CoARA’s research-assessment reform agenda, while the CEEI is a consultative body on research ethics and integrity, attached to Spain’s Council for Scientific, Technological and Innovation Policy. An institution can engage with both independently — participation in one is not a substitute for or indicator of engagement with the other.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was CoARA National Chapter Spain launched?
NC Spain was formally presented on 9 February 2024, at Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
Who coordinates NC Spain?
Four bodies jointly coordinate the chapter: CRUE (Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities), CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), ISCIII (Carlos III Health Institute), and ANECA (National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation).
How many institutions belong to NC Spain?
At its February 2024 launch, the chapter reported 84 participating institutions: 58 universities, 12 quality agencies, 11 research centres, one research funding organisation, and two associations. This figure can change as membership evolves; check coara.org’s Spain chapter page for the current count.
What was the 3rd National Chapters Exchange Forum?
It was CoARA’s recurring cross-chapter gathering, hosted in Madrid on 19-20 March 2026 by NC Spain’s coordinating group, bringing together National Chapter co-chairs from roughly twenty countries and more than 90 stakeholders to discuss how chapters implement CoARA’s principles in country-specific contexts.
Is NC Spain the same as Spain’s CEEI research ethics committee?
No. NC Spain coordinates CoARA research-assessment reform among Spanish institutions. The CEEI is a separate national body advising on research ethics and scientific integrity, established under Royal Decree 53/2023. See CASRAI’s CEEI guide for details on that body.
Has NC Spain published any collective outputs?
Yes. In September 2025, the chapter published its first collective report, Mapping Institutional Approaches to Research Assessment Reform, based on contributions from member universities, research centres, and evaluation agencies.
Last reviewed: July 2026. Figures such as the institutional roster count reflect the chapter’s founding launch data and may have changed since; consult coara.org’s Spain chapter page for the current, authoritative status.
