In spring 2026, three of the organizations most involved in the responsible-research-assessment (RRA) reform movement — the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), the Global Research Council (GRC)‘s Responsible Research Assessment Working Group, and Science Europe — jointly released A Practical Guide to Implementing Responsible Research Assessment at Research Funding Organizations. Unlike the declarations and coalition commitments that have anchored RRA discourse since DORA (2012) and CoARA (2022), this is a funder-facing implementation manual: a "how," not another "why."
What the guide actually is
DORA announced the guide publicly on April 15, 2026, describing it as a "one-stop-shop" resource for funding agencies exploring, implementing, and monitoring RRA strategies. It was formally launched through three regional online panel events in May 2026 — Americas (May 13), and Asia-Pacific and Africa/Europe (both May 14) — and Science Europe published its own companion announcement on May 21, 2026. The guide is openly available, including a version deposited on Zenodo.
It is explicitly a companion to a 2025 DORA resource aimed at research-performing organizations (universities and institutes). Where that earlier guide addressed how institutions assess researchers, this one addresses how funders assess proposals, applicants, and their own portfolios — a distinct and, until now, less-served part of the RRA ecosystem.
Who wrote it
The guide was co-created by DORA, the GRC’s Responsible Research Assessment Working Group, and Science Europe, drawing on DORA’s existing Funder Groups and a co-creation workshop held alongside the CeRRA (Conference on Reforming Research Assessment) High-Level Conference in Copenhagen in December 2025. That workshop brought together funders and partners from across the global research ecosystem to stress-test draft content before publication — a sector-wide consultation process rather than a single organization’s position paper.
The three co-authors occupy different but complementary positions in research-funder governance: DORA is the originating declaration and the movement’s methodological center of gravity; the GRC is the network of national research-council and funding-agency heads (not itself a grant-maker — see CASRAI’s GRC guide for how the organization itself works) that gives the guide legitimacy across G20/OECD-aligned funders; and Science Europe represents the collective voice of Europe’s major public research funding and performing organizations. Having all three names on one document is itself notable — it signals convergence, not competing frameworks, across the bodies research funding organizations (RFOs) are most likely to already be answerable to.
What it covers
Per DORA’s and Science Europe’s own descriptions, the guide is organized around practical, funder-focused activities rather than principles alone, including:
- Engaging leadership and building internal buy-in for assessment reform
- Developing a strategic vision for what "responsible" assessment means for a given funder’s mission and portfolio
- Mobilizing the resources (staff time, reviewer training, systems changes) reform actually requires
- Embedding change across the full funding lifecycle — not just at proposal review, but in reporting, career-stage evaluation, and how success is defined for grantees
Both source organizations are explicit that the guide offers discipline-agnostic, adaptable frameworks and illustrative examples rather than a single prescriptive model — consistent with DORA’s own long-standing position that "there is no single model for responsible research assessment" that fits every funder’s legal context, budget, and mandate.
Why a funder-specific guide, and why now
Most of the RRA movement’s prior output — DORA’s original 2012 declaration, CoARA’s 2022 agreement, the Hong Kong Principles — was written to be signed by institutions broadly, with funders as one signatory category among universities, publishers, and societies. A guide written specifically for the operational realities of a funding agency (how do you actually change reviewer instructions, scoring rubrics, and reporting templates, not just endorse a principle) fills a gap the sector had flagged repeatedly at CoARA and GRC meetings: funders often hold more direct leverage over researcher behavior than any individual university does, because grant criteria shape what gets proposed and rewarded in the first place. Making funders a distinct, well-served audience — after already producing the 2025 research-performing-organization edition — is a deliberate sequencing choice by DORA and its partners, not an afterthought.
How this differs from CASRAI’s existing GRC coverage
CASRAI’s Global Research Council (GRC): What It Is and How It Shapes Funder Policy guide covers the GRC as an organization — its founding, governance, and the range of policy areas (open access, research integrity, RRA among them) its working groups address. This page is scoped narrowly to a single, dated joint output: the May 2026 practical guide itself, who produced it, what it contains, and why it matters as a signal that DORA, the GRC, and Science Europe are now coordinating on funder-facing implementation resources rather than parallel, potentially overlapping guidance.
What research administrators and funding staff should do with this
For program officers and grants-management staff at a funding organization, the guide is a practical starting point for an internal audit of assessment practices — reviewer instructions, scoring criteria, and reporting requirements — against RRA principles already familiar from DORA and CoARA. For institutions that are DORA signatories or CoARA members primarily in their capacity as research performers, this is a reminder that the same reform logic is now being operationalized on the funder side of the relationship, with potential downstream effects on how grant criteria and reporting expectations are worded in the next funding cycle.
Frequently asked questions
Is this guide a new commitment framework, like DORA or CoARA?
No. It does not create new signatory obligations. It is an implementation resource for organizations that are already engaged with (or considering) responsible research assessment, including but not limited to existing DORA signatories and CoARA members.
Where can I access the guide?
DORA published it on its own site as an open resource, with a version also deposited on Zenodo for citable, versioned access. Organizations researching this should check DORA’s and Science Europe’s own sites directly for the current link, since resource pages are periodically updated.
Does this replace the 2025 DORA guide for research-performing organizations?
No — the two are described as companion resources: the 2025 guide addresses institutions assessing researchers, and this 2026 guide addresses funders assessing proposals, applicants, and portfolios.
Is the Global Research Council itself a grant-making body?
No. As covered in CASRAI’s GRC guide, the GRC is a network of national research funding and performing agency leaders, not a grant-maker with its own budget or application process. Its Responsible Research Assessment Working Group co-produced this guide in that convening/coordinating capacity.
