Editorial category Track E
Responsible research assessment
DORA, COARA, R4RI, narrative CVs.
- 17 August 2026
REF 2029’s SPRE Element: What UK Institutions Need to Know Now
REF 2021’s Environment element becomes SPRE in REF 2029, weighted 20% of the quality profile. What UK research offices should gather evidence for now.
- 17 August 2026
Cureus Delisted From Web of Science: What Changed
Clarivate delisted Cureus from Web of Science in October 2025. What it means for JIF eligibility, researcher CVs, and evaluating mega-journal quality.
- 17 August 2026
Clarivate Lifts Web of Science Hold on Heliyon After 650+ Retractions
Clarivate has restored Web of Science indexing for the Elsevier mega-journal Heliyon, ending a hold placed in September 2024 that followed an internal audit resulting in more than 650 retractions and over 1,000 corrections and expressions of concern.
- 30 July 2026
CoARA Action Plans: Values Over Practice
A 2026 Scientometrics analysis of 248 CoARA action plans finds aspirational ‘values’ language far outweighs concrete operational commitments to open science.
- 30 July 2026
DORA, CoARA Host Asia-Pacific RRA Workshop
DORA, FORCE11, CoARA and ALLEA convened funders, publishers and universities in Singapore to compare Asia-Pacific approaches to research-assessment reform.
- 30 July 2026
DORA, GRC, and Science Europe Publish RFO Guide
In May 2026, DORA, the Global Research Council’s Responsible Research Assessment Working Group, and Science Europe jointly published a practical implementation guide for research funding organizations moving toward responsible research assessment — the first RRA resource written specifically for funders rather than institutions.
- 30 July 2026
EC Study: What 263 ARRA Action Plans Reveal
The European Commission’s June 2026 study analysed 263 ARRA action plans, finding reform engagement broad and growing but uneven across Europe.
- 30 July 2026
Why China’s Corresponding-Author Counts Run High
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.
- 30 July 2026
NZ Scraps PBRF, Australia’s ERA Still Stalled
New Zealand has cancelled PBRF quality evaluation for good; Australia’s ERA replacement remains undesigned three years after ERA ended in 2023.
- 29 July 2026
RoRI’s Future of Peer Review Report
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.
- 29 July 2026
DORA Launches a Practical Guide for Funders
DORA published a Practical Guide to Responsible Research Assessment for funders, with GRC and Science Europe, launched via regional events 13-14 May 2026.
- 29 July 2026
Quebec’s FRQ Makes Narrative CV Mandatory in 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.
- 29 July 2026
2026 JCR: 521 Journals Get First Impact Factor
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.
- 28 July 2026
ResearchGate Retires RG Score for RI Score
ResearchGate retired the opaque RG Score around 2022 for the Research Interest (RI) Score, a formula weighting citations, recommendations, and reads.
- 24 July 2026
South Korea Rethinks Its Research Metrics
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.
- 24 July 2026
Denmark’s NORA Portal Moves to Statistics Denmark
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.
- 24 July 2026
Poland’s 2026-2030 Ewaluacja Reform Moves Past Points
Poland is overhauling how universities are scored, replacing rigid publication-point quotas with a two-pillar model adding qualitative criteria.
- 24 July 2026
OECD’s 2026 Report “Reforming Research Assessment for Better Science”: What It Found
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.
- 23 July 2026
MA3 Challenge: US research-assessment reform moves from declaration to implementation
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.
- 23 July 2026
REF 2029: Pause Ends, Weightings and Output Rules Confirmed
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.
- 18 July 2026
Tipping point: when does institutional CRediT capture become operationally easier than not?
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.
- 26 February 2026
The case for narrative CVs beyond UKRI
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.
- 5 February 2026
DORA, CoARA, and the Hong Kong Principles: the responsible-assessment lineage
From DORA (2012) to CoARA (2022) to UKRI’s 2024 R4RI mandate: the slow institutional turn against the impact factor and toward narrative CVs.
