CASRAI Dictionary

Author: MCP Service

  • OECD’s Reforming Research Assessment for Better Science: A 2026 Guide for Research Offices

    The OECD’s 2026 report, “Reforming Research Assessment for Better Science,” concludes that research assessment relying on narrow publication metrics and commercial rankings distorts research culture, and it recommends that institutions cut low-value evaluation, adopt open data infrastructures, and use AI in assessment only with caution. For research offices, the report’s six policymaker recommendations translate into concrete changes to how institutional evaluation criteria, data sourcing, and staff training are run.

    Research assessment is the systematic process of monitoring, evaluating and reviewing research inputs, processes, outputs and impacts, carried out by governments, funders, universities and publishers. The OECD reforming research assessment for better science policy brief — OECD Policy Briefs No. 56, published 29 April 2026 — sets out why that process is misaligned with how science now works, and what research-performing organisations should do about it.

    What is the OECD’s 2026 report on reforming research assessment?

    “Reforming Research Assessment for Better Science” is an OECD Policy Brief (No. 56) published on 29 April 2026 that reviews why current research-assessment practices are misaligned with the evolving nature of science, and sets out six actions for policymakers and institutions. It is accompanied by a longer evidence base, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Paper No. 2026/7, “New Expectations and Demands from Science: Rethinking Research Assessment Frameworks,” which maps the actors, tensions and drivers behind the reform movement.

    Both documents are credited to the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation, with Frédéric Sgard listed as the named contact. The brief carries the persistent identifier DOI 10.1787/f6202159-en; the working paper carries DOI 10.1787/0c685800-en. Neither document proposes a single replacement metric — instead, both argue for a system-level shift in how, and how often, assessment is conducted.

    Why does the OECD say metrics-based assessment needs reform?

    The OECD argues that heavy reliance on publication counts, citation rates and journal impact factors has produced perverse incentives, including a “publish or perish” culture that rewards quantity over quality. The brief cites peer-reviewed evidence — including Fanelli (2010) on publication bias and Öztürk and Taşkın (2024) on how metric-based evaluation fuels questionable publishing — to support this conclusion.

    Three specific harms are named:

    • High-risk, high-reward research is systematically undervalued because standard indicators cannot capture long-horizon payoff.
    • Transdisciplinary and societally engaged research is poorly captured by discipline-bound, publication-and-citation frameworks.
    • Assessment volume has grown faster than institutional capacity to absorb it, creating what the OECD calls research-assessment fatigue among researchers and administrators alike, a burden previously quantified in Technopolis Group’s 2015 REF Accountability Review.

    The report is equally direct about rankings. National and global university league tables, it states, “should not be used in RA” because they rely on non-transparent proprietary methods, are biased toward STEM subjects and English-language output, and — per the UN University’s Independent Expert Group 2023 Statement on Global University Rankings — can accentuate global, regional and national inequalities.

    What alternative evaluation tools and infrastructures does the OECD recommend?

    The OECD does not prescribe one alternative framework; instead, it maps nine existing international initiatives that research offices can draw on, and it names open, non-proprietary databases such as OpenAlex and Redalyc as viable substitutes for closed commercial data sources. The report’s own comparison table — reproduced and dated below — is the clearest single reference point for institutions deciding which framework to adopt or reference in policy documents.

    Initiative Year Core contribution
    DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) 2012 Discourages journal-based metrics as a proxy for quality; spawned the TARA practical-tools project in 2021
    Leiden Manifesto 2015 Principles and best practice for using quantitative indicators responsibly
    INORMS Research Evaluation Group 2018 SCOPE Framework for Research Evaluation and the “More than Our Rank” initiative
    FOLEC-CLACSO 2019 Regionally specific research-assessment guidelines for Latin America
    Hong Kong Principles 2019 Minimising perverse incentives; rewarding trustworthy research practice
    Science Europe Position Statement 2020 Recommendations on research assessment processes for funders
    CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) 2022 Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, with global signatories
    Barcelona Declaration 2024 Advocates open research information infrastructure
    Global Research Council RRA Working Group 2024 An 11-dimension framework for responsible research assessment

    The OECD’s own recommendation is not to pick a winner among these, but to “promote sustained dialogue” between them and to have governments recognise alignment with these emerging international principles as a criterion within cyclical institutional assessment exercises.

    What should research offices do differently?

    The report’s six policymaker actions each carry a direct operational counterpart for institutional research offices, from auditing evaluation volume to renegotiating data contracts. Research administrators reading the brief should map each national-level recommendation onto an institutional equivalent:

    • Reduce assessment volume: audit which internal reviews, reports and dashboards serve a “clearly defined objective” — and retire those that do not.
    • Diversify data sources: reduce dependency on single proprietary bibliometric platforms by testing open alternatives such as OpenAlex alongside existing subscriptions.
    • Remove rankings from internal criteria: strip commercial league-table position from promotion, tenure and internal funding-allocation rubrics.
    • Govern AI use cautiously: where AI tools are piloted in peer-review triage or portfolio analysis, require transparent, explainable models and documented human oversight rather than opaque large language models.
    • Invest in staff capacity: the brief is explicit that “guidance, training and capacity building will be key” — senior administrators, librarians and peer reviewers all need structured onboarding to new evaluation frameworks, not just a policy memo.
    • Adopt proportionate methods: match the evaluation method (summative for decisions, formative for development, or a blend) to the actual purpose of each assessment exercise.

    Institutions already engaged with CASRAI’s research administration resources will recognise these as extensions of existing responsible-metrics and open-science commitments rather than a wholesale change of direction.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What is responsible research assessment?

    Responsible research assessment refers to evaluation approaches that incentivise, reflect and reward the plural characteristics of high-quality research rather than relying on narrow proxy metrics such as journal impact factor. It combines qualitative judgement with proportionate, context-appropriate quantitative indicators, following principles set out by DORA, the Leiden Manifesto and CoARA’s 2022 Agreement.

    Why does the OECD discourage the use of rankings in research assessment?

    The OECD states that national and global rankings are marketing tools built on non-transparent proprietary data and methods that are not adapted to different institutions’ profiles or purposes. Because they are biased toward STEM subjects and English-language scholarship, their use in funding or hiring decisions can exacerbate global, regional and national inequalities rather than reflect genuine research quality.

    What role should AI play in research assessment, according to the OECD?

    The OECD says AI’s role in research assessment “needs to be carefully examined” rather than adopted by default. It favours transparent, deterministic models over opaque large language models, requires ex-ante risk assessment and human oversight, and warns that AI licensing costs can quietly increase institutions’ dependency on commercial technology providers.

    How can research offices reduce the burden of research assessment?

    Research offices can reduce burden by evaluating “only what and when necessary,” in the OECD’s words — applying assessment solely where a clearly defined objective exists and a less resource-intensive process would not suffice. Matching evaluation type (summative versus formative) to actual purpose, rather than defaulting to full review, is the report’s core proportionality test.

    What happens next for research assessment reform?

    The OECD frames reform as an iterative, long-term structural transition rather than a one-off policy change, pointing to national experiments already under way as evidence. It cites Rushforth’s 2024 analysis of the Netherlands’ “Recognition and Rewards” programme and China’s institutional hybrid responses (Liang, Zhao and Li, 2024) as examples of top-down signals interacting with bottom-up institutional experimentation.

    Concrete pilots are already generating data: Luxembourg’s National Research Fund reports three years of narrative-CV use as of 2026, and UK researchers have begun assessing generative AI’s potential role ahead of the REF 2029 exercise. For research offices, the practical takeaway is that no single framework will be mandated — institutions that start testing proportionate, criteria-linked alternatives now will be better positioned as national funders and assessment bodies converge around the OECD’s six recommendations.

  • DORA vs CoARA: What Administrators Should Know

    DORA vs CoARA are two distinct but connected research-assessment reform initiatives. DORA — the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, launched in 2012 — is a voluntary declaration that asks signatories to stop using journal-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor as a proxy for research quality. CoARA — the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment, formed in 2022 out of the EU-anchored Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment — asks member organisations to go further: sign ten explicit commitments and publish an implementation action plan. For research administrators deciding where to commit institutional resources, DORA sets the principle; CoARA sets the practice.

    DORA is best understood as a global statement of intent. CoARA is best understood as a structured, governed coalition with working groups, national chapters and reporting obligations. Many organisations do both — CoARA itself describes DORA as a foundational influence rather than a competing framework.

    Contents

    What is DORA?

    The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) is a declaration developed in December 2012 at the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting in San Francisco. DORA is a set of recommendations against using journal-based metrics — chiefly the Journal Impact Factor — as a proxy for the quality of individual articles, researchers or institutions.

    The declaration sets out one general recommendation plus tailored recommendations for five stakeholder groups: funding agencies, institutions, publishers, organisations that supply metrics, and researchers themselves. Its central instruction is consistent across all five: assess research on its own scientific merits, not on the reputation of the journal it appears in.

    DORA operates as a signature-based declaration hosted at sfdora.org. There is no membership fee, no mandatory reporting cycle and no central secretariat enforcing compliance — an organisation or individual signs, and DORA relies on public accountability and community pressure to drive change.

    What is CoARA?

    The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) is a coalition of research funders, universities, national academies and other research organisations that formed in 2022 around the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA), finalised that July with support from the European Commission and Science Europe. CoARA is a formal coalition, not a signature-only declaration: joining requires accepting ten explicit commitments and developing a published action plan.

    The ARRA’s ten commitments split into two tiers. Four “core commitments” are mandatory for every signatory, covering peer review as the primary basis of assessment, abandoning inappropriate use of journal- and publication-based metrics including the Journal Impact Factor and h-index, and rejecting the use of institutional rankings in assessment decisions. Six further commitments allow signatories to choose their own pace and approach.

    CoARA is governed through a General Assembly, a Steering Board and thematic Working Groups, and it operates national and regional chapters — including a UK National Chapter co-led by the Universities of Strathclyde, Loughborough and Swansea, according to the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA).

    DORA vs CoARA: key differences

    The two initiatives address overlapping goals through very different mechanisms. The table below summarises the practical distinctions an administrator needs before choosing where to commit.

    Feature DORA CoARA
    Founded 2012, San Francisco 2022, EU-anchored coalition
    Founding document San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA)
    Form of commitment Voluntary signature Formal membership with ten commitments
    Primary target Misuse of journal-based metrics (e.g. Journal Impact Factor) Whole-system reform of research careers and evaluation
    Governance No central secretariat; community-driven General Assembly, Steering Board, working groups, national chapters
    Follow-up obligation None mandatory Published implementation action plan required
    Geographic anchor Global, unaffiliated Originated in Europe; open to global membership

    How CoARA builds on DORA

    CoARA does not compete with DORA — it explicitly builds on it. Both organisations issued a joint statement in December 2025 describing themselves as “two of a diverse and global group of initiatives that share the aim of driving systemic change towards better research assessment,” according to CoARA’s own news pages. Many CoARA member organisations were DORA signatories first.

    Three concrete extensions distinguish CoARA’s approach from DORA’s:

    • From declaration to action plan. DORA asks for a signature; CoARA requires signatories to publish an action plan implementing the ten ARRA commitments within an agreed timeframe.
    • From one metric problem to whole-system reform. DORA’s scope centres on journal-based metrics. CoARA’s core commitments extend to peer review practice, diversity of research outputs, and the rejection of institutional rankings as an assessment tool.
    • From individual signature to governed coalition. DORA has no membership structure beyond its signatory list. CoARA runs a General Assembly, Steering Board, thematic working groups and national chapters — including the UK chapter co-led by Strathclyde, Loughborough and Swansea — that coordinate implementation and share practice across members.

    Which should your institution commit to?

    For most research organisations this is not an either/or choice. DORA signature carries low administrative overhead and signals a clear public position against metric misuse — a reasonable first step for any institution, funder or publisher. CoARA membership is the heavier commitment: it requires governance capacity to produce and report against an action plan, and it suits institutions ready to reform hiring, promotion and evaluation processes at a systemic level, not just at the level of individual metrics.

    Institutions with limited capacity should sign DORA first and use it to build internal consensus before taking on CoARA’s action-plan obligations. Institutions already running research-culture or REF-adjacent reform programmes are better placed to join CoARA directly, since the ten commitments map closely onto work many UK universities are already doing through national chapters and INORMS-linked evaluation groups.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What does DORA stand for in research?

    DORA stands for the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, launched in December 2012. It calls on funders, institutions, publishers and researchers to stop using journal-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor as a substitute for evaluating the actual scientific content of research outputs.

    What is CoARA and how does it differ from DORA?

    CoARA is the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment, a 2022 coalition built on the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. Unlike DORA’s voluntary signature, CoARA requires member organisations to accept ten formal commitments and publish an implementation action plan, coordinated through national chapters and working groups.

    What are the DORA principles?

    DORA’s core principle is that research quality must be assessed on its own merits, not on the venue where it is published. Its recommendations cover funding agencies, institutions, publishers, metrics suppliers and researchers, each urged to eliminate journal-based metrics from funding, hiring and promotion decisions.

    Does DORA apply in the UK?

    DORA is a voluntary global declaration, not a UK legal requirement, but numerous UK universities and funders are signatories. UK institutions increasingly reference DORA and CoARA together in responsible-metrics policies connected to REF-related research culture and assessment reform work.

    Implications for research administrators

    The practical takeaway for administrators is a sequencing question, not a binary choice. DORA signature is fast, low-cost and a credible public marker of intent. CoARA membership is a governance commitment that touches hiring panels, promotion criteria and institutional reporting cycles, and it demands sustained capacity from a research-culture or research-strategy office.

    As responsible research assessment moves from advocacy into funder and institutional policy — with UNESCO, Science Europe and national funders increasingly referencing both frameworks — administrators should expect DORA and CoARA to be treated as complementary layers: DORA the founding principle, CoARA the operational coalition that turns it into an implementation plan.

    For related context on how research contributions are formally recognised alongside assessment reform, see CASRAI’s overview of research administration practice.

  • CoARA Action Plan: Reform or Box-Ticking?

    CoARA’s action plan framework requires every signatory to publish, within a year of joining, a time-bound roadmap for reforming its research-assessment criteria, and to show progress at a five-year checkpoint due at the end of 2027. Three years after the Coalition’s November 2022 launch, membership has grown from roughly 100 founding organisations to more than 830 — yet CoARA’s own public tracker shows most signatories have not yet deposited a citable action plan, which is the real test of whether this is reform or box-ticking.

    The CoARA action plan is the documented, time-bound roadmap each Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment signatory must publish, setting out how it will revise the criteria, tools and processes it uses to evaluate research, researchers and research-performing organisations against the Agreement’s core commitments.

    What does the CoARA action plan actually require?

    The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA) obliges signatories to review or develop criteria, tools and processes against ten core commitments, and to record that process as an action plan with defined milestones. Under CoARA’s own guidance, the first plan is due within one year of signing (eighteen months for early signatories), with a further checkpoint at the end of 2027, by which point signatories must have completed at least one full review-and-development cycle.

    Crucially, CoARA imposes no fixed template. Organisations have “full freedom” in how they design their plan, and the Coalition explicitly asks signatories not to duplicate existing responsible-assessment work. That flexibility is defensible for a coalition spanning universities, funders, academies and research infrastructures — but it also means the Coalition has no standard unit for measuring whether commitments are being kept, only a request that plans be deposited publicly via a shared Zenodo collection.

    Has reform reached hiring, promotion and grant criteria?

    Some of the evidence is concrete. Loughborough University’s action plan, deposited in October 2023, embeds existing responsible research assessment practice into formal review criteria rather than treating CoARA as a new bolt-on process. Goldsmiths, University of London published a 2024–2029 plan explicitly tied to promotion and appraisal reform, and the University of Edinburgh deposited an updated plan in 2025 addressing how researchers and research-support staff are evaluated.

    Funders have moved too. Denmark’s Independent Research Fund (DFF) published an updated action plan in May 2025 that tracks delivery status against each commitment — a rare example of a signatory reporting progress rather than just intent. Italy’s national evaluation agency, ANVUR, has a 2024–2027 plan aimed at aligning national research-assessment criteria, not just one institution’s, with CoARA principles.

    These cases show the mechanism can produce real, checkable change in grant review and promotion documentation. The open question is how representative they are of the Coalition as a whole.

    How many signatories have actually filed an action plan?

    CoARA’s own live tracker — “Action Plans: Submitted & Pending to Date” — lists roughly 660 organisation entries with a due date for their first action plan. Of those, only around 136 carry an actual Zenodo DOI, meaning a plan has been deposited and made citable. The remaining entries, including many whose plans were originally due back in October 2023, are still marked “Pending” three years on.

    That is a completion rate of roughly one in five against CoARA’s own one-year deadline. It does not necessarily mean four in five signatories have done nothing internally — some may be reforming quietly without depositing paperwork — but it is the single clearest, most falsifiable indicator CoARA itself publishes, and it currently favours the “declaratory” reading of the Coalition’s progress over the “reformed” one.

    Metric Figure (CoARA live tracker, accessed July 2026)
    Organisation-level action plan entries tracked ~660
    Entries with a deposited, citable action plan (DOI issued) ~136 (≈21%)
    Entries still marked “Pending” ~514 (≈78%)
    Total current CoARA member organisations 834, across 60+ countries

    CoARA vs DORA: does history repeat itself?

    CoARA did not invent the credibility problem it now faces. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), launched in 2012 to curb inappropriate use of the Journal Impact Factor, has accumulated more than 27,000 individual and organisational signatures across 174 countries, according to sfdora.org’s own signer registry. Yet studies of research, promotion and tenure documents have repeatedly found continued reliance on journal-based metrics at institutions that formally signed DORA years earlier — a gap between signature and practice that critics now cite as the precedent CoARA risks repeating.

    CoARA’s design tries to close that gap by making the action plan, not the signature, the operative commitment, with a public deposit requirement and a 2027 checkpoint. A 2024 critique circulated on arXiv (Baccini et al.) argued the opposite risk: that shifting assessment toward qualitative, panel-based peer review could trade transparent metric-driven gatekeeping for a less transparent, harder-to-audit equivalent. Both critiques point to the same underlying test — not whether an organisation signs, but whether its actual review paperwork changes.

    Feature DORA (2012) CoARA (2022)
    Core ask Stop using Journal Impact Factor as a proxy for quality in funding, hiring and promotion Ten commitments on qualitative, diverse and open research assessment
    Accountability mechanism Voluntary signature; no mandatory public action plan Mandatory action plan within one year, deposited on Zenodo, checkpoint by end of 2027
    Current scale 27,000+ signatures, 174 countries (sfdora.org) 834 member organisations, 60+ countries (coara.org)
    Documented gap Continued JIF use found in signatory RPT criteria ~78% of due action-plan entries still “Pending” on CoARA’s own tracker

    Common questions about the CoARA action plan

    What is CoARA research?

    The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment is a membership body of universities, funders, academies and research infrastructures committed to reforming how research, researchers and research-performing organisations are evaluated. It operates under the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, signed from November 2022, which sets shared commitments rather than a single enforced standard.

    What are CoARA National Chapters?

    CoARA National Chapters are country- or region-specific groups, such as the chapter for Ireland, that help local signatories interpret the Agreement’s commitments in their own funding, promotion and language context. They provide practical support for drafting action plans and coordinate national-level alignment with funder policy, including engagement with existing metrics guidance such as DORA.

    Is CoARA the same as DORA?

    No. DORA is a narrower 2012 declaration focused specifically on removing inappropriate Journal Impact Factor use from assessment. CoARA is a broader 2022 coalition with ten commitments covering qualitative assessment, output diversity and open science, and it requires a public, time-bound action plan rather than a one-off signature.

    How many organisations have signed CoARA?

    CoARA’s live membership register lists 834 organisations across more than 60 countries as of mid-2026, up from just over 100 at the November 2022 launch. Growth in membership has significantly outpaced growth in verified, publicly deposited action plans over the same period.

    What this means for research administrators

    For institutional leaders and research-administration teams, CoARA membership is not self-certifying reform. Signing the Agreement creates a public commitment; only a deposited, dated action plan against the ten commitments creates an auditable one. Institutions that have not yet filed should treat the gap as reputational exposure, not paperwork.

    • Check whether your organisation’s action plan (if due) has been deposited to the CoARA Zenodo collection, not just drafted internally.
    • Map each commitment against a specific, named change to hiring, promotion or grant-review criteria — not a general statement of intent.
    • Use the 2027 checkpoint as an internal deadline for demonstrating at least one completed review-and-development cycle, in line with the ARRA’s own timeframe.

    Outlook: what would count as proof by 2027?

    CoARA’s five-year touchpoint at the end of 2027 is the moment the “reform or box-ticking” question gets a real answer. If the proportion of signatories with a deposited, dated action plan rises substantially from today’s roughly one-in-five, and if more funders publish delivery-tracked updates in the style of Denmark’s DFF, the declaratory reading weakens. If the Pending column stays this full, CoARA will have reproduced the exact credibility gap DORA has spent over a decade trying to close.

  • What Is CoARA? Research Assessment Reform Guide

    CoARA — the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment — is a research-sector coalition, launched in Brussels on 1 December 2022, that commits signatory universities, funders and academies to reform how research and researchers are evaluated. Signatories agree to move away from journal-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor and h-index, and toward qualitative peer review supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators, under a ten-commitment Agreement and a mandatory one-year action plan.

    CoARA is coara — the coalition’s name is almost always written and searched as the acronym. It is distinct from, though philosophically aligned with, the earlier US-originated DORA declaration. This guide sets out CoARA’s founding, its principles, how it differs from DORA, and the practical steps an institution takes to join and report progress.

    What is CoARA and why was it created?

    CoARA is a coalition of research funders, universities, national academies, and assessment authorities that have agreed a common Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. The Agreement text was finalised in July 2022 by a working group convened under the impetus of the European Commission, Science Europe and the European University Association, and the coalition was formally launched at a founding event in Brussels on 1 December 2022, with an initial cohort of over 350 signatories.

    CoARA’s stated purpose is to correct research assessment practice that over-relies on publication counts and citation-based metrics, at the expense of recognising open science practices, data stewardship, mentoring, and other contributions. Its secretariat is hosted by the European Science Foundation (ESF), which manages the coalition’s day-to-day operations and coordinates the CoARA Boost Horizon Europe capacity-building project.

    How does CoARA differ from DORA?

    CoARA and DORA share a target — inappropriate use of journal-level metrics in research evaluation — but they are separate initiatives with different origins, scope and mechanisms. DORA (the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) was launched in 2013 by the American Society for Cell Biology and asks signatories to stop using Journal Impact Factor as a proxy for the quality of individual articles or researchers. CoARA was launched nearly a decade later, in December 2022, out of a European Commission-adjacent policy process, and goes further by requiring a written, time-bound action plan.

    Feature CoARA DORA
    Launched 1 December 2022 2013
    Origin European Commission / Science Europe / EUA policy process American Society for Cell Biology (San Francisco)
    Secretariat European Science Foundation Independent DORA organisation
    Formal commitments 10 commitments in a signed Agreement Declaration principles, no numbered commitment list
    Action plan required Yes — within 1 year of signing No formal action plan requirement
    Governance tiers Signatory and Member (Member votes in General Assembly) Single signatory tier

    In practice, most CoARA signatories are also DORA signatories — the two agreements are treated as complementary rather than competing, and institutions frequently cite both when describing their responsible-metrics policy.

    What are CoARA’s core commitments and principles?

    The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment sets out ten commitments that every signatory and member accepts. The headline commitments require signatories to:

    • Recognise the diversity of contributions to, and careers in, research in accordance with the needs and nature of the research.
    • Base research assessment primarily on qualitative evaluation, for which peer review is central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators.
    • Abandon inappropriate uses in research assessment of journal- and publication-based metrics, in particular the Journal Impact Factor and h-index.
    • Avoid the use of rankings of research organisations in research assessment.

    CoARA describes its overarching vision as recognising diverse outputs, practices and activities that maximise the quality and impact of research, with peer review as the essential mechanism, rather than treating metrics as a substitute for judgement.

    How do institutions join CoARA and report progress?

    Joining CoARA has two tiers, and the distinction matters for governance rights. An organisation first becomes a signatory by signing the Agreement, publicly endorsing the ten commitments. A signatory can then apply to upgrade to full Member status, which brings the right to participate in the General Assembly, vote on Steering Board candidates, and take part in collective decision-making. There are no membership fees at either tier.

    Both signatories and members are required to submit an action plan within one year of signing, setting out concrete, time-bound steps to implement the ten commitments locally. Progress is then reported through periodic updates to that action plan rather than a single one-off filing — for example, founding member DARIAH ERIC published a progress report covering 2022–2024 alongside an updated action plan for 2025–2027, documenting achievements against its original milestones.

    1. Review the Agreement text and confirm institutional sign-off.
    2. Sign as a signatory (or apply for Member status if governance participation is needed).
    3. Publish an action plan within 12 months, mapped to the ten commitments.
    4. Join a relevant Working Group or National Chapter to share implementation practice.
    5. Update the action plan periodically and publish progress reports.

    Who are CoARA’s members and working groups?

    CoARA’s signatory base has grown substantially since the December 2022 launch: from an initial cohort of roughly 350 organisations to more than 800 research-performing organisations, funders, assessment authorities, professional societies and their associations by 2026, according to the coalition’s own signatory listing. UNESCO’s Open Science programme separately describes CoARA as convening a comparable population of research-performing entities, research funding institutions, and research infrastructure bodies working on reform in the context of open science.

    Substantive reform work happens through Working Groups (covering topics such as narrative CVs and responsible use of metrics) and National Chapters, regional networks — including a UK National Chapter — that let organisations contextualise reform to local academic systems. CoARA’s first Working Groups and National Chapters were formed in autumn 2023, following an open call to members.

    Frequently asked questions

    What does CoARA stand for?

    CoARA stands for the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment. It is a coalition of research funders, universities, and assessment bodies that have signed an Agreement committing them to reform how research and researchers are evaluated, moving away from metrics-only assessment.

    Is CoARA the same as DORA?

    No. CoARA and DORA are separate initiatives with shared aims. DORA launched in 2013 in the United States and targets journal-metric misuse; CoARA launched in December 2022 from a European policy process and additionally requires signatories to publish a formal action plan.

    What is a CoARA action plan?

    A CoARA action plan is a written, time-bound document that a signatory or member must publish within one year of signing, setting out the concrete steps it will take to implement the Agreement’s ten commitments, followed by periodic progress updates.

    How many organisations have signed the CoARA agreement?

    CoARA’s signatory base has grown from roughly 350 organisations at its December 2022 launch to more than 800 by 2026, spanning universities, funders, national academies and research infrastructure bodies across dozens of countries.

    What this means for research administrators

    For research administration, library, and grants-office teams, CoARA membership is not a symbolic gesture — it is a governance commitment with a deadline. The one-year action-plan requirement forces institutions to audit hiring, promotion, and grant-review criteria for inappropriate metric use, and to document a credible replacement process built on qualitative peer review.

    Institutions already engaged in responsible-metrics work through research administration policy reviews are well placed to convert existing DORA commitments into a CoARA-compliant action plan, since the two frameworks are complementary rather than contradictory. Where an institution has no prior DORA history, the CoARA action plan effectively becomes the first formal audit of assessment criteria across the research lifecycle.

    Outlook: where CoARA reform goes next

    CoARA’s growth from a 350-signatory launch coalition to a body of more than 800 organisations within roughly three and a half years signals that action-plan-based reform, not declaration-only signing, is becoming the expected model for European and internationally-linked research assessment reform. National Chapters and Working Groups are the mechanism through which this scales beyond individual institutional pledges into shared, auditable practice — and institutions evaluating research administration reform should treat the CoARA action plan cycle as a recurring governance obligation, not a one-time compliance exercise.

  • Horizon Europe Proposal Won’t Survive at €175bn

    The European Commission’s €175 billion Horizon Europe proposal for 2028–2034 (FP10) is unlikely to survive Council negotiations intact. Every prior Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) research settlement — including the current Horizon Europe programme, whose original €100 billion opening bid was cut to €95.5 billion — has been reduced during Council bargaining, and the Cyprus Council presidency has already tabled a lower figure. Research administrators building multi-year horizon europe proposal pipelines should plan around a materially smaller settlement, not the headline number.

    The Multiannual Financial Framework is the European Union’s seven-year budget ceiling, negotiated unanimously by the Council of the EU and agreed jointly with the European Parliament, within which programmes such as Horizon Europe and its successor, FP10, receive their funding envelope.

    What Does the €175 Billion FP10 Proposal Actually Contain?

    On 17 July 2025, the European Commission published its legislative proposal for FP10 — the tenth EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, running as “Horizon Europe” from 2028 to 2034. The headline figure is €175 billion, roughly double the €95.5 billion allocated to the outgoing 2021–2027 programme.

    That number sits inside a larger structure. According to the Commission’s own published breakdown, FP10’s €175 billion is nested within a €410 billion European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), alongside €234 billion for other schemes. The programme is organised into four pillars: Excellent Science (covering the European Research Council and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), Competitiveness and Society, Innovation (the European Innovation Council), and a strengthened European Research Area pillar.

    Crucially, €175 billion is a Commission opening bid, not an agreed budget. Interinstitutional negotiation between Parliament, Council and Commission — the trilogue process — has only just begun, and a final MFF agreement is not expected before the end of 2026, ahead of the programme’s planned January 2028 launch.

    What Does MFF Precedent Say About Opening Bids?

    Every MFF research and innovation envelope in living memory has been negotiated down from the Commission’s opening figure. The pattern is consistent enough to build a forecast on.

    Framework programme Commission opening bid Outcome Change
    Horizon Europe (2021–2027) €100 billion (2018 Commission proposal) €95.5 billion final agreed budget, including a €5.4 billion NextGenerationEU top-up -4.5% net; at one point during the July 2020 European Council summit the figure was pushed as low as €80.9 billion before partial restoration
    FP10 / Horizon Europe (2028–2034) €175 billion (July 2025 Commission proposal) Not yet agreed. The Cyprus Council presidency has tabled €167.9 billion (April 2026) -4% on the Council’s opening counter-offer, against a European Parliament push for at least €200 billion

    The direction of travel is identical across both cycles: the Commission proposes a large increase, the European Parliament pushes for more, and the Council — which represents net-contributor member states with competing fiscal priorities — trims the figure during trilogue. FP10 is already following that script four months into formal negotiation, with the Cyprus presidency’s €167.9 billion counter-proposal landing before the Parliament has even finalised its own position.

    Why Is the €175bn Figure Already Shrinking?

    Three structural pressures point the same direction. First, the Council negotiates the overall MFF ceiling as a zero-sum allocation across cohesion, agriculture, defence and competitiveness spending — Horizon Europe/FP10 competes directly against those other headings, not in isolation. Second, several large net-contributor states have historically resisted MFF increases regardless of programme performance; this held even after Horizon Europe’s own interim evaluation found that every euro of EU contribution generates up to €11 in GDP gains by 2045 and that the programme had funded over 15,000 projects worth more than €43 billion as of January 2025.

    Third, FP10’s link to the European Competitiveness Fund creates a new negotiating lever that did not exist in the FP9 round: Council delegations can trade the research envelope against the wider €410 billion ECF total rather than negotiating Horizon Europe’s budget as a standalone line. That structural change makes a cut easier to justify politically, because ministers can present a smaller Horizon Europe figure as reallocation within a still-large competitiveness package rather than as a straightforward science-budget reduction.

    What Does This Mean for Grant-Pipeline Forecasting?

    Institutional research offices, EARMA and ARMA-affiliated grant teams, and funder relations units that are building multi-year FP10 pipeline models on the €175 billion figure are working from a number that has already moved once, before formal Council conclusions have even been reached. Practical implications include:

    • Model a range, not a point estimate. Use €167.9 billion (current Council presidency position) as a working floor and €175 billion as a ceiling until trilogue concludes, rather than planning around the Commission’s original figure.
    • Expect pillar-level reallocation, not uniform cuts. Past MFF rounds have shown cuts land unevenly across pillars; Excellent Science and EIC allocations have historically been better protected than collaborative-project envelopes.
    • Anticipate a later call-schedule start. With final agreement not expected before end-2026 and launch set for January 2028, first-wave FP10 call texts are likely to be finalised later in 2027 than institutions may be assuming.
    • Track the European Parliament position separately from the Council’s. The Parliament’s push for €200 billion is a genuine counterweight in trilogue, so the final figure could land above the Council’s current €167.9 billion offer — plan for a range, not a single downside scenario.

    For institutions coordinating this work through research administration functions, the practical response is to build FP10 revenue forecasts as scenario bands tied to the trilogue calendar, and to revisit those bands each time a Council presidency publishes a new negotiating box.

    Answer-First Q&A

    What Is the Budget for Horizon Europe?

    The outgoing Horizon Europe programme (2021–2027) has a final agreed budget of €95.5 billion, including a €5.4 billion NextGenerationEU top-up. The Commission has proposed €175 billion for its successor, FP10 (2028–2034), but that figure is an opening bid still subject to Council and Parliament negotiation.

    What Is the Budget of the Horizon Europe Pillars?

    FP10 is structured across four pillars: Excellent Science, Competitiveness and Society, Innovation, and the European Research Area. The Commission has not yet published final per-pillar allocations for FP10; these will be set through the same trilogue process determining the overall €175 billion headline figure.

    How Much Does the UK Pay Into Horizon Europe?

    The UK associated to Horizon Europe from January 2024 under a bespoke deal negotiated after the Windsor Framework, paying a contribution linked to UK GDP with a correction mechanism if UK entities draw significantly less funding back than they contribute. Exact annual figures are published periodically by UKRI rather than fixed in the framework regulation itself.

    What Is Horizon Europe Funding?

    Horizon Europe funding supports research and innovation projects across the EU and associated countries, covering frontier science (European Research Council), collaborative research addressing societal challenges, and innovation support (European Innovation Council). FP10 will continue this structure while adding closer integration with the European Competitiveness Fund.

    Conclusion: Plan for Less Than €175bn

    The evidence points one way. FP9’s opening bid fell by 4.5% net — and by nearly a fifth at its lowest negotiating point — before final agreement. FP10’s Council presidency has already tabled a 4% cut just months into formal talks, with a full trilogue still ahead. Research administrators, institutional finance offices and funder-relations teams should treat €175 billion as a ceiling, build FP10 grant-pipeline models around the €167.9–175 billion range the Council and Parliament are currently contesting, and revisit those forecasts as each successive Council presidency publishes its negotiating box through to the expected end-2026 agreement.

  • Horizon Europe Open Access Policy: Gold vs Green

    Under Horizon Europe, gold open access lets grantees claim Article Processing Charges (APCs) as an eligible cost when publishing in a fully open access journal, while green open access requires no APC but demands immediate deposit of the accepted manuscript in a repository — Horizon Europe permits no embargo period on either route. The route chosen changes what a grant can reimburse, not whether the underlying obligation to provide open access is met.

    Horizon Europe open access policy is the European Commission’s mandate, set out in the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement, requiring immediate open access to peer-reviewed publications arising from EU-funded research, with no embargo and a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence as the default. This article resolves the specific pre-award question research administrators and principal investigators raise most often: which route — gold or green — is cheaper, faster to budget, and lower-risk to comply with.

    What does the gold open access route require and cost?

    Gold open access means publishing the final version of record directly in a journal or platform that is open access from the moment of publication. Under Horizon Europe, APCs for publishing in a fully open access journal are an eligible cost and can be charged to the grant budget, provided the journal is genuinely open access rather than a subscription title offering a paid open option.

    The European Commission’s Horizon Europe Annotated Grant Agreement draws a firm line here: APCs paid to hybrid journals — subscription journals that unlock a single article for a fee — are not an eligible cost unless the journal is covered by an institutional transformative agreement the funder recognises. Grantees who publish gold must still deposit a copy of the final published version, and its metadata, in a trusted repository at the time of publication; paying the APC does not remove the deposit obligation.

    A cost-free variant of the gold route exists: Open Research Europe (ORE), the European Commission’s own peer-reviewed publishing platform for Horizon Europe and Euratom beneficiaries. ORE carries no APC for eligible authors, publishes under CC BY, and satisfies the immediate-access requirement without a grant budget line at all.

    What does the green open access route require, and is there really no embargo?

    Green open access means publishing as normal — including in subscription or hybrid journals — and separately depositing a copy of the work in a trusted repository so readers can access it without a subscription. Because no APC is typically paid, the green route carries no direct cost to reimburse, which is its main budgetary appeal.

    The compliance burden shifts instead to timing and rights. Horizon Europe’s Model Grant Agreement requires the author’s accepted manuscript (AAM) — the final peer-reviewed text before typesetting — to be deposited and made publicly accessible immediately on publication, with no embargo permitted. This is stricter than many national funder policies, several of which still allow embargoes of six to twelve months for the green route. Grantees must also apply a CC BY licence to the deposited manuscript, which means notifying the publisher of their funder obligations at submission, since standard subscription-journal copyright transfer agreements do not grant this right automatically.

    Retaining the necessary rights is the single most common green-route compliance failure. Institutions increasingly rely on rights-retention strategies — asserting a CC BY licence on the AAM ahead of acceptance — to avoid publisher pushback after the fact.

    Gold vs green: how APC reimbursement actually differs

    The financial and compliance trade-offs are distinct enough that they warrant a direct route-by-route comparison rather than treating “open access compliance” as one undifferentiated obligation.

    Factor Gold open access Green open access
    APC reimbursement Eligible for fully open access journals and platforms; must be budgeted in the grant Not applicable — no APC in most cases
    Hybrid-journal APCs Not eligible, unless covered by a recognised transformative agreement Not relevant — publish anywhere, then self-archive
    Embargo allowed Not applicable — immediate by definition None permitted under Horizon Europe
    Version deposited Final published version (Version of Record) Author’s Accepted Manuscript
    Licence required CC BY (CC BY-NC/ND permitted for monographs) CC BY on the deposited manuscript
    Zero-cost option Open Research Europe (no APC) Always zero-cost by design

    For grant budgeting, this comparison has one practical consequence: a grantee who assumes any APC is reimbursable, or that green deposit can wait for a standard embargo, will fall out of compliance. Horizon Europe’s no-embargo rule on green deposit is stricter than UKRI’s REF-era transitional allowances and than several national mandates still permitting embargoes — a distinction that trips up researchers moving from a previous funder’s rules onto a Horizon Europe grant.

    Common questions on Horizon Europe open access requirements

    What are the open access requirements for Horizon Europe?

    Horizon Europe requires all peer-reviewed scientific publications resulting from funded work to be made immediately open access, with no embargo, under a CC BY licence (or CC BY-NC/ND for monographs). This applies whether the grantee chooses the gold or green route, and a repository deposit is required in both cases.

    What is the European Commission’s open access policy under Horizon Europe?

    The Commission’s policy treats open access as the default expected outcome of publicly funded research, not an optional extra. It requires immediate access, open licensing, and open metadata, and extends beyond publications to FAIR research data underpinning them, governed by the grant’s Data Management Plan.

    Is open access always free for the author?

    No. Gold open access typically involves an APC, which Horizon Europe treats as an eligible grant cost only for fully open access venues. Green open access is generally free, since it relies on self-archiving rather than a publication fee, making it the lower-cost default where budget is constrained.

    What is an open access policy, in funder terms?

    An open access policy is a funder’s binding condition that research outputs be made freely accessible and reusable, typically specifying the timing (immediate vs embargoed), licence type, and eligible cost treatment. Horizon Europe’s version is among the strictest in Europe because it removes the embargo option entirely.

    What this means for grant budgeting and compliance teams

    Research offices preparing a Horizon Europe proposal should budget APCs only against fully open access venues or confirmed transformative agreements, and should not assume hybrid-journal costs will be reimbursed. Where budget certainty matters more than journal choice, green open access or Open Research Europe removes APC risk entirely while still meeting the immediate-access mandate.

    Compliance teams should build rights-retention language into author guidance before submission, not after acceptance, since the no-embargo rule leaves no room to negotiate access timing with a publisher post hoc. Institutional repository workflows that trigger deposit reminders at the point of acceptance — rather than publication — reduce the risk of missing the immediate-deposit requirement.

    As the European Commission continues to expand Open Research Europe’s remit and cOAlition S partners refine rights-retention model policies, the practical gap between the two routes is likely to narrow further on cost but remain wide on process — gold trades money for simplicity, green trades cost for rights-management discipline.

  • Horizon Europe Funded Projects: A CORDIS Guide

    Horizon Europe funded projects can be found and verified using CORDIS (the European Commission’s project and results database), the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, and the EU Open Data Portal. Together these three sources let research offices and journalists confirm a grantee’s funding claim, check participant lists, and pull bulk data for institutional funding intelligence — without relying on a press release alone.

    CORDIS is the European Commission’s public repository of information on all EU-supported research and innovation activities, covering Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020, and earlier framework programmes. Horizon Europe itself is the EU’s research and innovation programme running from 2021 to 2027 with a total budget of €95.5 billion — equivalent to more than £82 billion, per UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). For research administrators fielding a grantee’s funding claim, or journalists fact-checking a university press release, CORDIS and its companion open-data channels are the primary — and only authoritative — verification path.

    Table of Contents

    What Is CORDIS and How Does It Differ from the Funding & Tenders Portal?

    CORDIS (the Community Research and Development Information Service) is the European Commission’s archive of completed and ongoing EU-funded research, published once a project’s grant agreement is signed. It holds project factsheets, participant lists, publications, and results summaries. It is a record-of-outcome database, not a live application system.

    The EU Funding & Tenders Portal is the operational counterpart: it hosts open calls, submission tools, and — via its “Projects & Results” screen — a live, filterable list of funded projects that CORDIS later mirrors in fuller narrative form. Research offices verifying a fresh award should check the Portal first, since CORDIS records can lag a signed grant agreement by several weeks.

    • CORDIS — narrative factsheets, deliverables, publications, historical coverage back to earlier framework programmes.
    • Funding & Tenders Portal — live calls, submission status, the most current funded-project listings.
    • Horizon Dashboard — an analytical tool for exploring proposal and project statistics, success rates, and thematic breakdowns.

    Start at the CORDIS “Projects & results” search screen and filter by programme (“Horizon Europe”), then narrow by Call ID or Topic ID if you have one (for example, a Cluster 2 topic under the HORIZON-CL2 series). Country, funding scheme (RIA, IA, CSA, MSCA), and date-range filters further isolate a specific award.

    CORDIS also publishes curated “Results Packs” — thematic collections of projects grouped by policy area — which are useful for institutional landscaping rather than single-grant verification. For MSCA-specific searches, note that the 2026 MSCA Doctoral Networks call (reference HORIZON-MSCA-2026-DN-01-01) opened on 28 May 2026, per the UK Research Office (UKRO); calls of this kind appear on the Portal before a full CORDIS factsheet exists.

    Source Best for Data format Update cadence
    CORDIS Narrative verification, deliverables, publications Web factsheet, CSV/XML export Post-grant-signature, periodic refresh
    Funding & Tenders Portal Live calls, current award lists Web listing Continuous
    EU Open Data Portal Bulk download, cross-referencing, custom tools CSV, XML, RDF (Linked Open Data) Scheduled batch releases

    How to Verify a Horizon Europe Funding Claim

    To confirm a grantee’s claim, cross-check the project’s CORDIS factsheet against the institution named in the claim, the grant agreement number, and the coordinating organisation. A genuine Horizon Europe award will show a matching participant entry, a signed grant-agreement number, and a funding scheme code (RIA, IA, CSA, ERC, MSCA, or EIC) consistent with the claim.

    Research offices should treat three signals as minimum verification thresholds:

    • Grant agreement number matches the one cited in the press release or CV.
    • Participant organisation appears in the CORDIS or Portal participant list under the exact legal name, not an informal variant.
    • Funding scheme and call reference align with the programme claimed (for instance, an MSCA claim should carry an MSCA call ID, not a generic Horizon Europe label).

    Where a claim predates a public CORDIS factsheet, verification should fall back to the Funding & Tenders Portal’s live award listing, which the Commission updates continuously as grant agreements are signed.

    Open Data, APIs, and Bulk Downloads for Institutional Funding Intelligence

    For research offices building institutional funding intelligence rather than checking a single claim, the EU Open Data Portal offers bulk downloads of the entire CORDIS Horizon Europe dataset in CSV and XML. This supports local analysis, cross-referencing against institutional grant registers, and building custom compliance-tracking tools.

    CORDIS data is also published as Linked Open Data, allowing structured queries that connect project records to organisations, topics, and results. Registered users can access a CORDIS API for programmatic, automated retrieval — useful for offices that need to refresh a funding dashboard on a schedule rather than search manually. This combination of bulk export, Linked Open Data, and API access is the layer most institutional guides to horizon europe open calls and project tracking omit, yet it is the layer that turns one-off verification into a repeatable compliance workflow.

    Common Questions About Finding and Verifying Horizon Europe Projects

    What is CORDIS and is it the official source for Horizon Europe projects?

    CORDIS is the European Commission’s public database of EU-funded research and innovation activities, including Horizon Europe. It is the Commission’s own archive, making it the primary reference for confirming a project’s existence, participants, and funding scheme — more authoritative than a university press release or third-party aggregator.

    How do I search CORDIS for projects by topic, country, or call?

    Use the CORDIS “Projects & results” search page and apply filters for programme, country, funding scheme, and Call or Topic ID. Combining a Topic ID (such as a HORIZON-CL2 reference) with a date range narrows results to a specific call round quickly.

    How can I verify that a project claiming Horizon Europe funding is genuine?

    Cross-check the grant agreement number, coordinating organisation, and funding scheme code against the CORDIS factsheet or the Funding & Tenders Portal’s live listing. A mismatch on any of these three elements is grounds for further inquiry before repeating the claim institutionally.

    Can I download Horizon Europe project data in bulk?

    Yes. The EU Open Data Portal publishes the full CORDIS Horizon Europe dataset as CSV, XML, and Linked Open Data, and offers API access for registered users. This supports institutional dashboards, compliance sweeps, and cross-referencing against internal grant registers at scale.

    For research offices and journalists alike, the practical takeaway is the same: treat CORDIS and Portal listings as the verification baseline before any funding claim is repeated in an institutional profile, REF-style return, or news report, and use the Open Data Portal’s bulk exports when the task shifts from checking one grant to monitoring a whole portfolio. See CASRAI’s broader coverage of research administration practice for related compliance workflows.

  • Horizon Europe Calls 2026: Deadlines & OA Rules

    Horizon Europe calls 2026 run across the EU’s €14 billion 2026-2027 Work Programme, published by the European Commission on 11 December 2025 and searchable on the Funding & Tenders Portal. Pre-award teams should track submission status and cluster deadlines on the Portal, then verify each call’s specific open access and data-sharing conditions before drafting a proposal.

    The Horizon Europe Funding & Tenders Portal is the European Commission’s single official system for publishing, filtering and submitting proposals to every Horizon Europe call for proposals.

    What Is the Horizon Europe 2026-2027 Work Programme?

    The European Commission adopted the Horizon Europe 2026-2027 Work Programme on 11 December 2025, releasing over €14 billion in funding opportunities across the programme’s final two-year cycle, according to UK Research Office (UKRO) and Innovate UK Business Connect reporting on the publication. This is the last work programme under the current 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework.

    The European Research Council (ERC) and European Innovation Council (EIC) published their 2026 work programmes separately and earlier in the cycle. Pre-award offices tracking “all open calls” therefore need to check the main Work Programme package and these two standalone documents together, not the main package alone.

    • Horizontal activities, including a new €540 million call supporting the Clean Industrial Deal and AI in Science
    • Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) postdoctoral, doctoral network and staff exchange strands
    • Six thematic Clusters: Health; Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society; Civil Security for Society; Digital, Industry and Space; Climate, Energy and Mobility; and Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
    • Five EU Missions: Adaptation to Climate Change, Cancer, Restore our Ocean and Waters, Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, and Soils

    How Do You Track Open Horizon Europe Calls in 2026?

    The EU Funding & Tenders Portal is the single official source for every Horizon Europe call; institutions should treat it, not third-party digests or mailing lists, as the system of record for deadlines and eligibility rules. Portal searches can be filtered and saved so that new topics matching an institution’s research areas trigger an automatic alert.

    An effective pre-award tracking routine has four steps:

    1. Filter the Portal’s “Search Funding & Tenders” screen by programme (Horizon Europe), submission status (“Forthcoming” or “Open for submission”), and programme part or cluster.
    2. Save the search and register for email notifications so new topics appear automatically rather than being missed between manual checks.
    3. Cross-check each topic’s call identifier (for example HORIZON-MSCA-2026-PF-01) against the relevant cluster or actions Work Programme PDF for full scope and evaluation criteria.
    4. Log the topic’s submission deadline, type of action (RIA, IA, CSA or COFUND), and open science conditions in the institution’s internal pipeline before allocating proposal-writing resources.

    National Contact Points add a second layer of verification: UK applicants, for example, can confirm topic scope and competitiveness with UKRI’s National Contact Point team before committing resources to a full proposal.

    What Are the Key Horizon Europe 2026 Call Deadlines?

    Most single-stage calls that opened in early 2026 close in September or October 2026, though Clusters 1, 4, 5 and 6 include topics with earlier or later cut-offs, according to Innovate UK Business Connect’s analysis of the published Work Programme. Pre-award teams should check each cluster individually rather than assume a single portfolio-wide deadline.

    Call Reference Deadline
    MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 HORIZON-MSCA-2026-PF-01 9 September 2026
    MSCA Doctoral Networks 2026 HORIZON-MSCA-2026-DN-01 24 November 2026
    ERC Proof of Concept 2026 ERC-2026-POC 17 September 2026
    Restore our Ocean and Waters Mission calls Mission-specific topics 23 September 2026
    EU Space Research (Cluster 4, HaDEA-managed) Cluster 4 topics 2026 call, €90.97 million budget

    These dates illustrate the spread across strands rather than an exhaustive list. Every topic carries its own deadline on the Portal, and multi-stage calls add an earlier outline-proposal cut-off before the full submission date.

    What Open Access and Data-Sharing Obligations Apply Before You Submit?

    Every Horizon Europe grant agreement carries mandatory open science obligations that sit alongside the topic-specific scientific requirements, and reviewers assess a proposal’s data management approach as part of the excellence criterion. Confirming these terms before submission avoids a compliance gap that would otherwise surface only at the grant agreement stage.

    Three obligations apply to essentially every Horizon Europe-funded output:

    • Immediate open access to peer-reviewed publications, with no embargo period, deposited in a trusted repository and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) or an equivalent licence.
    • A Data Management Plan (DMP) as a mandatory deliverable, with a first version due within six months of the project start and updated as data-generation plans evolve.
    • FAIR data handling — Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable — applied under the principle of “as open as possible, as closed as necessary,” with closure permitted only for justified reasons such as intellectual property, personal data or security.

    Individual calls layer additional conditions on top of these baseline rules. A Cluster 1 (Health) topic handling clinical data, for example, carries stricter personal-data provisions than a Cluster 4 digital-infrastructure topic. Call-specific conditions are published in the topic’s own annex, not just the general Work Programme introduction, so pre-award teams must read both documents before finalising the proposal’s data management section.

    For terminology used across these obligations — contributor roles, persistent identifiers, licensing terms — the CASRAI Dictionary provides standards-aligned definitions that research administration teams can cite directly in DMPs and internal guidance.

    Common Questions About Horizon Europe Calls 2026

    Where can I find the official list of open Horizon Europe calls for 2026?

    The EU Funding & Tenders Portal is the European Commission’s official system listing every open, forthcoming and closed Horizon Europe call. Filter by programme, submission status and cluster, then save the search to receive automatic email alerts when new matching topics are published.

    How much funding is available in the Horizon Europe 2026-2027 work programme?

    The Commission made over €14 billion available across the 2026-2027 Work Programme, published 11 December 2025, covering MSCA, Research Infrastructures, the six thematic Clusters, the five Missions, and horizontal strands such as the Clean Industrial Deal call.

    Do Horizon Europe grants require open access to publications?

    Yes. Horizon Europe requires immediate open access with no embargo for all peer-reviewed publications, deposited in a trusted repository under a CC BY licence or equivalent, with open metadata describing the funding and licensing terms.

    What is a Data Management Plan and when is it due?

    A Data Management Plan (DMP) sets out how a project will generate, document, share and preserve research data under FAIR principles. It is a mandatory Horizon Europe deliverable, with a first version due within six months of the project start date.

    Implications for Pre-Award Teams

    Treating call-tracking and open science compliance as two separate workflows creates risk: a proposal can clear the Portal’s deadline filter yet still fail a topic’s data-sharing conditions during grant preparation. Pre-award offices get better outcomes by building a single checklist that logs the deadline, the type of action, and the open access and DMP conditions from the same read-through of the topic text.

    The 2026-2027 Work Programme is the final cycle before the next Multiannual Financial Framework, so institutions should expect the Commission to keep tightening open science verification at the reporting stage rather than relax it. Early, consistent DMP practice now reduces rework at grant signature. Research administration teams building this capability can align proposal, compliance and reporting language using the CASRAI research administration resources.

  • CoARA Signatories: What Institutions Commit To

    Becoming a CoARA signatory means an institution publicly commits to the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment’s ten reform principles, publishes an implementation action plan within one year, and reports progress at least once before completing a first review cycle within five years. It is not legally binding, but it does require sustained institutional resourcing, not a signature alone.

    The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) is a European Commission-convened coalition, formalised by the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment finalised on 20 July 2022, through which universities, funders, and research organisations commit to reduce reliance on journal-based metrics and rankings in evaluating research and researchers.

    What is the CoARA Agreement, and who can sign?

    CoARA grew out of a 2021 European Commission consultation and was launched with the Agreement’s finalisation on 20 July 2022. Signing is open to any organisation involved in research assessment worldwide — universities, research funders, national evaluation agencies, learned societies, and research infrastructures — not only European institutions.

    Signatory status crossed the 500-organisation mark on 29 March 2023, according to CoARA’s own tracking. A 2025 analysis published via RePEc found that 450 European higher education institutions (13% of the sector) had signed by that point, with uptake concentrated among PhD-awarding institutions (27%) and research-intensive universities (52% of that subgroup) — a signal that CoARA’s early adopter base skews toward research-heavy institutions rather than teaching-focused ones.

    Real institutional signatories include the University of Suffolk and the University of Exeter, both of which publish their own CoARA implementation pages describing internal governance changes made after signing.

    The ten commitments: what signatories actually commit to

    Under the CoARA Agreement, every signatory — regardless of size or country — commits to ten commitments covering how it will evaluate research, researchers, and research organisations. These are not aspirational statements; each maps to a concrete practice change an institution is expected to work towards:

    • Recognise the diversity of contributions to research and researchers’ careers, beyond publications alone.
    • Base assessment primarily on qualitative evaluation, with peer review central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators.
    • Abandon inappropriate use of journal- and publication-based metrics, including the Journal Impact Factor and h-index, as proxies for quality.
    • Avoid using rankings of research organisations in assessment decisions.
    • Commit the resources needed — staff time, budget, governance attention — to deliver reform, not just endorse it.
    • Review and develop assessment criteria, tools, and processes used across hiring, promotion, and funding decisions.
    • Raise awareness and provide training on responsible assessment for staff involved in evaluation.
    • Exchange practices and experiences with other signatories to support mutual learning.
    • Communicate progress on implementation transparently, on a defined schedule.
    • Evaluate assessment practices, criteria, and tools against evidence, and adjust where they fail.

    Two commitments — abandoning inappropriate metrics and avoiding institutional rankings — are the ones that most directly change day-to-day promotion and hiring committee behaviour, and are typically where research offices meet the most internal resistance during rollout.

    Reporting obligations and the implementation timeline

    Signing triggers a defined, dated sequence rather than an open-ended pledge. Within one year of signing, a signatory must develop and publish an action plan setting out the concrete steps it will take to implement the ten commitments, including which assessment processes it will review first.

    Within five years of signing, the institution is expected to have completed at least one full cycle of reviewing and developing its research assessment criteria, tools, and processes against the commitments. Between those two milestones, CoARA expects signatories to communicate progress periodically rather than waiting until the five-year mark to report anything.

    Milestone Deadline from signing date What is required
    Action plan published Within 1 year Public document setting reform priorities and near-term steps
    Progress communication Ongoing, periodic Transparent reporting on implementation status
    First review cycle complete Within 5 years Assessment criteria, tools, and processes reviewed and revised

    This structure matters for planning: a research office should budget for the action-plan drafting effort in year one, not treat CoARA sign-up as a communications exercise with no near-term deliverable.

    Signatory vs member: choosing the right level of commitment

    CoARA distinguishes two levels of participation, and institutions weighing whether to sign should decide which one they actually want. A signatory commits to the ten commitments and the reporting timeline above. A full member takes on the same commitments plus governance rights — including voting in CoARA’s General Assemblies and standing for working-group roles. As of 12 June 2026, CoARA listed 840 member organisations, reflecting continued growth in institutions choosing the fuller governance-participation route rather than signatory status alone.

    CoARA also operates national and regional chapters, which coordinate implementation support and peer exchange between signatories in a given country or region, between the Coalition’s plenary meetings. For UK research offices, chapter-level exchange is often the most practical channel for benchmarking an action plan against comparable institutions, since chapters convene signatories facing similar national funding and assessment frameworks.

    Institutions frequently ask how CoARA relates to the earlier San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA, 2012). DORA is narrower — it focuses specifically on eliminating journal-based metrics from research evaluation — while CoARA is broader, adding a defined action-plan and reporting cadence, formal membership tiers, and a chapter structure. Many UK universities, including Exeter, have signed both, treating DORA as the metrics-specific pledge and CoARA as the wider institutional reform framework.

    Common questions from research offices

    What are the ten CoARA commitments signatories must sign up to?

    Signatories commit to ten principles spanning recognising diverse research contributions, basing assessment primarily on qualitative peer review, abandoning journal-based metrics like the Journal Impact Factor, avoiding institutional rankings, resourcing reform, and reporting progress transparently on a defined schedule.

    How long does it take to become a CoARA signatory?

    Signing itself takes minutes via an online form on the CoARA website, requiring an authorised representative’s confirmation. The real timeline is what follows: a published action plan within one year, and a completed review cycle within five years of the signing date.

    What is the difference between a CoARA signatory and a CoARA member?

    Both accept the ten commitments. A full member additionally gains governance rights, including voting at CoARA’s General Assemblies and eligibility for working groups, while a signatory-only organisation commits to the reform agenda without formal voting participation.

    Is signing the CoARA agreement legally binding?

    No. The CoARA Agreement is a public, non-legally-binding commitment. There is no external enforcement mechanism beyond published action plans and periodic progress reporting, which places the compliance burden on institutional governance and reputational accountability rather than contract law.

    For research offices weighing the decision, the practical question is not whether to endorse fairer assessment in principle — few institutions object to that — but whether the office has the standing capacity to draft an action plan within twelve months and sustain a five-year review cycle against promotion, hiring, and funding-assessment practices that are often owned by separate committees. Institutions that under-resource this step tend to publish thin action plans that stall by year two; those that assign a named owner and align the plan with an existing REF-cycle or research-strategy review timeline see steadier progress. As CoARA’s chapter network and membership base continue to grow past 840 organisations, the practical bar for what a credible action plan looks like is also rising, since chapter peers and evaluators increasingly benchmark new signatories against established ones.

  • DORA vs CoARA: Two Routes to Reform Compared

    DORA and CoARA are the two leading movements for reforming how research and researchers are evaluated, but they take structurally different routes to get there: DORA is an individual and institutional pledge against journal-based metrics, while CoARA is a formal coalition agreement requiring signatories to file a time-bound action plan. Both aim to move assessment away from proxies like the Journal Impact Factor and toward qualitative, peer-reviewed judgement of research contributions.

    The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) is a global advocacy initiative, founded in San Francisco in 2012, that asks signatories to stop using journal-based metrics as a proxy for the quality of individual researchers’ work. The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) is a European-rooted membership coalition, launched in 2022, whose signatories commit to ten core principles and must submit a formal reform action plan within twelve months. For a research office deciding where to commit institutional resources, the choice is rarely either/or — but the two frameworks demand very different levels of operational follow-through, and understanding that gap is the first step to choosing correctly.

    What is DORA?

    DORA — the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment — began as a set of conversations at the American Society for Cell Biology’s 2012 Annual Meeting in San Francisco. It was formalised as a Declaration in 2013 and became a standalone organisation in 2018, according to DORA’s own institutional history published on sfdora.org.

    DORA’s central ask is narrow and specific: institutions and individuals commit not to use journal-based metrics — chiefly the Journal Impact Factor — as a proxy for the quality of an individual researcher’s contributions in hiring, tenure and funding decisions. Signing is a public, low-friction act. There is no mandatory action plan and no membership fee; DORA instead supports change through advocacy, case studies and practical tools such as its Reformscape database of assessment policies.

    What is CoARA?

    CoARA is a collective of research organisations, funders, assessment authorities and professional societies that have agreed a common direction for research assessment reform, set out in the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA), published in July 2022. As of mid-2026, over 800 organisations have signed the Agreement, according to CoARA’s own membership page.

    Unlike DORA, CoARA distinguishes between two tiers of participation. Signatories publicly endorse the Agreement’s ten core commitments and agree to submit a reform action plan within one year of signing. Members additionally gain voting rights in CoARA’s General Assembly and can shape governance through the Steering Board. Both tiers are free — there are no CoARA membership fees. The Coalition is governed by a General Assembly and Steering Board, with its Secretariat hosted by the European Science Foundation (ESF), and it runs a Horizon Europe-funded capacity-building initiative, CoARA Boost, to support members through implementation.

    DORA vs CoARA: key differences

    The two initiatives are complementary rather than competing, but they differ sharply on scope, accountability and governance structure.

    Feature DORA CoARA
    Origin 2012 (Declaration), organisation since 2018 2022, via the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment
    Geographic centre Global, US-founded European-led, global membership
    Primary focus Eliminating journal-based metrics (e.g. Journal Impact Factor) as a quality proxy Systemic reform of research assessment across outputs, practices and careers
    Commitment level Public declaration; no mandatory follow-up 10 core commitments plus a mandatory action plan within 12 months
    Participation tiers Single tier — signatories Two tiers — signatories and voting members
    Governance DORA organisation, advocacy and tools-led General Assembly, Steering Board, Secretariat hosted by the European Science Foundation
    Local structures Community-of-practice groups (e.g. funders, initiatives) Working Groups and National Chapters (e.g. UK National Chapter, co-led by Loughborough, Strathclyde and Swansea universities)

    The two organisations are not operating in isolation from each other. DORA sits as an institutional observer on the CoARA Steering Board, and CoARA participates in DORA’s National and International Initiatives Community of Practice. On 3–4 December 2025, the two initiatives issued a joint statement at the EU Presidency High-Level Conference on Reforming Research Assessment (CERRA) in Copenhagen, marking CoARA’s third anniversary and formally describing their work as complementary rather than overlapping.

    Which framework should a research office sign?

    The decision depends on how much operational capacity a research office can commit, not on which framework is “better”.

    • Sign DORA first if the institution needs a fast, low-cost public statement against misuse of the Journal Impact Factor in hiring, tenure and promotion — useful as a first move for offices without dedicated reform capacity.
    • Join CoARA if the institution can resource a structured, time-bound reform process — CoARA’s requirement to publish an action plan within 12 months forces assessment policy from principle into practice, with peer support through Working Groups and National Chapters.
    • Sign both, as a growing number of UK institutions have done. The University of Edinburgh, for example, lists itself as a signatory of both DORA and CoARA as part of its responsible research assessment programme.

    One implementation detail is often overlooked: CoARA’s core commitments explicitly call for “recognising the diversity of contributions to, and careers in, research” — a principle that is difficult to operationalise without a mechanism for recording who did what on a given output. The CRediT contributor role taxonomy, which CASRAI originated in 2014 and which is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, is one of the few practical tools that lets an institution move from CoARA’s principle of contribution diversity to a granular, auditable record of it — a link that neither framework’s own documentation makes explicit, but that research administration offices implementing CoARA action plans should factor into their tooling decisions.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is CoARA research assessment?

    CoARA research assessment refers to the evaluation practices reformed under the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, which asks signatories to base judgement on peer review and qualitative assessment of diverse outputs, rather than publication counts or journal prestige, backed by a mandatory action plan.

    What are the DORA principles?

    DORA’s core principle is to eliminate the use of journal-based metrics, particularly the Journal Impact Factor, as a proxy for the quality of an individual researcher’s work in funding, hiring, and promotion decisions, focusing evaluation instead on the scientific content of the output itself.

    What does CoARA stand for and who leads it?

    CoARA stands for the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment. It is governed by a General Assembly and Steering Board, with administrative coordination from a Secretariat hosted by the European Science Foundation (ESF).

    Can an institution sign both DORA and CoARA?

    Yes. The two frameworks are formally complementary, not competing — DORA holds observer status on the CoARA Steering Board, and institutions such as the University of Edinburgh are signatories of both as part of a single responsible-assessment programme.

    Both movements are converging rather than diverging. With DORA now an institutional observer inside CoARA’s governance and the two bodies issuing joint statements at EU policy conferences, research offices should treat the DORA-versus-CoARA question less as a binary choice and more as a sequencing decision: a quick public pledge against metric misuse, followed — where capacity allows — by the structured, accountable reform pathway that CoARA’s action-plan requirement enforces.