Explainer · Plain-language
The San Francisco Declaration On Research Assessment: Definition, Meaning & Examples | CASRAI
The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) is a global statement of principles for improving the way the outputs of research are evaluated. Drafted in 2012 and published in 2013, its central message is that research should be assessed on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which it is published. DORA has become one of the most widely endorsed reform initiatives in research assessment, signed by tens of thousands of individuals and organisations worldwide.
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Origins: the 2012 ASCB meeting
DORA was conceived in December 2012 at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) in San Francisco, where a group of editors and publishers of scholarly journals gathered to discuss their shared concern about how research was being evaluated. The resulting declaration was finalised and made public in May 2013. The immediate target of their concern was the Journal Impact Factor — a measure originally devised to help librarians make subscription decisions — which had come to be used in ways it was never designed for: as a proxy for the quality of individual papers and the researchers who wrote them. DORA was an attempt to halt that drift and to set out concrete steps that different actors in the research system could take.
The central recommendation
DORA's headline recommendation is general and applies to everyone: do not use journal-based metrics, such as the Journal Impact Factor, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist's contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions. The reasoning is partly statistical and partly conceptual. Citation distributions within a journal are highly skewed, so a journal's average (the JIF) tells you little about any single article. The JIF is also influenced by editorial and disciplinary factors, can be negotiated or gamed, and is not transparently calculated. Judging a paper by where it appeared, DORA argues, substitutes the reputation of a container for an actual assessment of the work.
Recommendations by stakeholder group
Beyond the general recommendation, DORA sets out tailored recommendations for the main actors in research assessment. For funding agencies and institutions, it advises being explicit that scientific content matters more than publication metrics, and considering the value of all research outputs — including datasets and software — alongside narrative measures of influence. For publishers, DORA recommends reducing emphasis on the impact factor as a promotional tool, providing a range of article-level metrics, and making citation data open. For organisations that supply metrics, it calls for transparency about how indicators are calculated and discouragement of misuse. The shared thread is to assess research on its own merits and to broaden the range of contributions that count.
Signatories and relationship to other initiatives
DORA can be signed by both individuals and organisations, and the number of signatories has grown into the tens of thousands — more than 20,000 individuals and organisations across over 160 countries — making it one of the most widely endorsed research-assessment reform statements. Signing is a public commitment to put its principles into practice. DORA is complemented by other reform efforts. The Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics (2015) offers ten principles for the responsible use of quantitative indicators, providing the "how" to DORA's "what". More recently, the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), launched in 2022 around an Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, has built a membership organisation to drive systemic change across Europe and beyond. CASRAI maintains a separate, briefer overview of DORA at /learn/what-is-dora.
Key facts
At a glance
- Full name: San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)
- Origin: Drafted Dec 2012 at the ASCB Annual Meeting; published May 2013
- Core message: Do not use journal metrics (e.g. JIF) to judge individual articles or researchers
- Structure: One general recommendation plus targeted ones for funders, institutions, publishers, metric providers
- Reach: Signed by 20,000+ individuals and organisations across 160+ countries
- Related: Leiden Manifesto (2015) and CoARA (2022)
Common misconceptions
What people often get wrong
Often heard: DORA bans the use of all metrics in research assessment.
Actually: No — DORA does not reject metrics outright. It objects specifically to using journal-based metrics like the Journal Impact Factor as a surrogate for the quality of individual articles or researchers, and calls for a wider range of article-level and qualitative measures used responsibly.
Often heard: DORA is a law or a binding regulation.
Actually: No — DORA is a voluntary declaration of principles. Its force comes from the public commitment of its signatories — funders, institutions, publishers, and individuals — to change their assessment practices, not from any statutory power.
Often heard: The Journal Impact Factor was created to measure article quality.
Actually: No — the JIF was originally devised to help librarians decide which journals to subscribe to. DORA's concern is precisely that it has been repurposed as a proxy for individual article and researcher quality, a use it was never designed for.
Going deeper
