Research assessment reform needs collective action because hiring, promotion and funding criteria are set independently by thousands of institutions — a single university dropping journal-based metrics gains nothing if every competing institution, funder and publisher still rewards them. Recent research-on-research literature frames this explicitly as a collective action problem: individual declarations such as DORA signal intent, but only coordinated, system-wide commitments — the model CoARA is built around — actually rewrite the incentives that determine careers.
A collective action problem in research assessment is a situation where no single institution can achieve reform on its own without risking a competitive disadvantage, so change only happens when many actors move together under a shared, verifiable commitment.
- What is the collective action problem in research assessment reform?
- Why doesn’t an individual DORA signature change hiring criteria?
- How does CoARA’s coordinated model differ from individual declarations?
- What does the Dutch “Recognition and Rewards” case show?
- Frequently asked questions
- What should institutions actually do together?
What Is the Collective Action Problem in Research Assessment Reform?
A 2025 study in Minerva by sociologist Alexander Rushforth, “Research Assessment Reform as Collective Action Problem,” argues that research evaluation change cannot be reduced to individual institutional choice. Rushforth traces this through the Netherlands’ national “Recognition and Rewards” initiative, formally launched in 2019 to coordinate system-wide changes in assessment practice across the Dutch science system.
The framing matters because it shifts the diagnosis. If assessment culture were simply a matter of institutional willpower, a DORA signature would be sufficient. If it is instead a coordination failure — where no actor can safely move first — then reform requires simultaneous, mutually reinforcing commitments from institutions, funders and publishers together.
Why Doesn’t an Individual DORA Signature Change Hiring Criteria?
The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), launched in 2012, asks signatories to stop using journal-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor as a proxy for the quality of individual articles or researchers. Signing carries no binding enforcement mechanism, and DORA itself has long acknowledged that the harder work begins after signature — its 2019 guidance “You’ve signed DORA, now what?” explicitly frames hiring, promotion and funding criteria as the next, unfinished step.
Two structural problems keep that step unfinished when institutions act alone:
- First-mover risk. An institution that stops counting journal prestige in tenure review can be undercut in recruitment and rankings by peers who have not changed, because researcher CVs are still read against metric-based expectations elsewhere.
- Interoperability failure. Where assessment criteria diverge sharply between institutions and countries, researcher mobility suffers — a candidate assessed holistically at one university may be filtered out by a metrics-based shortlist at the next.
Neither problem is solved by any single signature. Both require peer institutions, funders and disciplinary societies to move on a broadly shared timetable.
How Does CoARA’s Coordinated Model Differ From Individual Declarations?
The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) was formed around the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, which the European Commission signed and endorsed alongside DORA on 8 November 2022. Unlike a one-off declaration, CoARA requires member organisations to commit to a shared action plan with defined milestones, reported progress and working groups that develop common tools and criteria across institutions — moving assessment reform from individual pledge to managed, collective process.
That coordination logic was reinforced on 4 December 2025, when CoARA and DORA released a joint statement on aligning their respective reform efforts rather than running parallel, uncoordinated campaigns. Science Europe’s April 2026 position statement, “Connecting Open Science and Research Assessment Reform,” makes the same point from the funder side: it treats open science and assessment reform as “mutually reinforcing and interdependent drivers of research cultures,” explicitly a multi-actor framing rather than an institution-by-institution one.
| Dimension | Individual DORA signature | Coordinated (CoARA-style) commitment |
|---|---|---|
| Enforcement | None — declaration of intent only | Action plan with milestones and reporting |
| Hiring/promotion criteria | Left to each institution’s own timetable | Shared working groups developing common criteria |
| Competitive risk to first movers | High — one institution changes alone | Reduced — peers move on a shared timetable |
| Researcher mobility | Fragmented across institutions/countries | Greater interoperability of criteria sought |
What Does the Dutch “Recognition and Rewards” Case Show?
Rushforth’s analysis of Recognition and Rewards found that the initiative succeeded in uniting support from multiple influential national stakeholders — universities, funders and academic hospitals moving together — precisely because it was designed as a coordinated, system-wide commitment rather than a set of separate institutional pledges. It also documents genuine friction: critics raised concerns about the Netherlands “going it alone” internationally, illustrating that collective action problems exist at more than one level simultaneously — within a national system, and between that system and the rest of the world.
The OECD’s April 2026 report “Reforming Research Assessment for Better Science” reaches a parallel conclusion at the international level, describing the current reform landscape as “a collective of organisations committed to reforming the assessment of research, researchers, and research organisations” — language that treats coordination, not individual compliance, as the operative unit of change.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Signing DORA Actually Change University Hiring Practices?
Not by itself. DORA’s own post-signature guidance states that hiring, promotion and funding decisions require separate, deliberate policy changes after signature. A signature is a public commitment; rewritten criteria documents, reviewed by hiring and promotion committees, are the actual evidence of change.
What Is CoARA and How Does It Differ From DORA?
CoARA is a coalition of research funders, institutions, and organisations built around the 2022 Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. Unlike DORA’s single declaration, CoARA members commit to shared action plans, working groups and reported milestones — a coordination structure rather than a one-time pledge.
Why Is Research Assessment Reform Described as a Collective Action Problem?
Because no institution can safely change its own assessment criteria in isolation without risking a competitive disadvantage in recruitment and rankings. Research-on-research literature, including Rushforth’s 2025 Minerva study, argues reform requires simultaneous, coordinated commitments across many independent actors.
Can One University Move Away From Metrics Without Being Disadvantaged?
It can, but the Netherlands’ Recognition and Rewards case shows even a coordinated national effort faced criticism for “going it alone” relative to the rest of the world. A single institution acting without peer, funder and publisher alignment faces materially higher exposure to that same risk.
What Should Institutions Actually Do Together?
For research administration teams, the practical implication of the collective-action framing is direct: a DORA or CoARA signature belongs on a compliance checklist next to, not instead of, three coordination-dependent actions.
- Confirm hiring and promotion criteria documents have actually been rewritten, not merely a signature logged in a registry.
- Compare criteria against peer institutions in the same discipline and country to identify where first-mover risk is concentrated.
- Engage through CoARA working groups or equivalent sector bodies (ARMA, EARMA, INORMS) rather than drafting new criteria in isolation.
Reform that stops at the signature stage produces a compliance artefact, not a changed incentive structure. The evidence from both the Dutch national case and the CoARA-DORA coordination model points the same way: assessment reform moves at the speed of the slowest coordinated group, not the fastest individual signatory. Institutions that treat their own criteria rewrite as contingent on parallel movement by peers, funders and publishers are following the pattern the research-on-research literature identifies as actually working — treating reform as a shared infrastructure problem, not a personal compliance decision.
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