Responsible research assessment

DORA, FORCE11, CoARA and ALLEA convened funders, publishers and universities in Singapore to compare Asia-Pacific approaches to research-assessment reform.

The European Commission’s June 2026 study analysed 263 ARRA action plans, finding reform engagement broad and growing but uneven across Europe.

Nature reports China’s multiple-corresponding-author rate hit ~30% by 2020, up from 21.6% in 2016 — tied to evaluation incentives, not byline convention.

New Zealand has cancelled PBRF quality evaluation for good; Australia’s ERA replacement remains undesigned three years after ERA ended in 2023.

RoRI’s PEER REVIEW project wraps up with a June 2026 report: peer review has hit a breaking point, and needs a layered, funder-led reform blueprint.

DORA published a Practical Guide to Responsible Research Assessment for funders, with GRC and Science Europe, launched via regional events 13-14 May 2026.

As of January 2026, Quebec’s FRQ requires the narrative CV-FRQ for all its competitions, replacing the Canadian Common CV across all FRQ-funded programs.

Clarivate’s 2026 Journal Citation Reports gave 521 journals a Journal Impact Factor for the first time, from 47 countries/regions, with 58% based outside the US and Western Europe — part of a multi-year geographic-diversification trend research offices should track.

ResearchGate retired the opaque RG Score around 2022 for the Research Interest (RI) Score, a formula weighting citations, recommendations, and reads.

Korean universities lead on paper counts but lag on citation impact and R&D return. NRF data, a Springer Nature forum, and researcher surveys are fueling a live debate over moving past publication-count evaluation.

Denmark’s NORA research portal moved from DTU to Statistics Denmark in Jan. 2026, ahead of a reported consolidated, open-architecture database later in 2026.

Poland is overhauling how universities are scored, replacing rigid publication-point quotas with a two-pillar model adding qualitative criteria.

In April 2026 the OECD published a policy brief, Reforming Research Assessment for Better Science, finding that assessment still relies on narrow metrics that undervalue collaboration, openness, and societal impact, and recommending governments treat reform as a national science-policy priority.

MA3 (Modernizing Academic Appointment & Advancement) is a US-specific research-assessment reform initiative, distinct from DORA and CoARA: it funds a defined cohort of universities to actually rebuild hiring, review, promotion, and tenure processes rather than sign a statement of principle. Here is what it is, who runs it, and where it stands.

REF 2029 criteria-setting paused 4 Sept 2025, resumed 10 Dec 2025: CKU/E&I/SPRE weightings, a 5-output cap, and lighter impact rules are now confirmed.

Institutional CRediT capture has a fixed-cost-versus-recurring-cost crossover. A practical model of where the tipping point lies and how to reach it faster.

UKRI’s Resume for Research and Innovation has matured. Why other funders should adopt narrative-CV formats, and the practical lessons from five years of UKRI experience.

From DORA (2012) to CoARA (2022) to UKRI’s 2024 R4RI mandate: the slow institutional turn against the impact factor and toward narrative CVs.