CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: dora declaration on research assessment

  • DORA Signatories: A Checklist for Institutions

    DORA signatories are institutions, funders, publishers, or individuals who have formally endorsed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment — a public commitment to stop treating journal-based metrics like the Journal Impact Factor as a proxy for research quality in hiring, promotion, and funding decisions. Signing is voluntary and unaudited: it obliges a signatory to publish a statement of intent, not to hit a fixed reform deadline.

    DORA (the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) is a set of research-assessment reform principles, published on 13 May 2013, that discourages substituting journal-based metrics for qualitative judgement of individual research contributions. Note: this is unrelated to the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act, which regulates financial-sector ICT risk and happens to share the same acronym — this article covers only the research-assessment declaration.

    What Do DORA Signatories Actually Commit To?

    A DORA signatory commits to a principle, not a procedure. The declaration originated from a December 2012 meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology and was published on 13 May 2013. Its core ask is narrow and specific: do not use the Journal Impact Factor, or any journal-level metric, “as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles” in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.

    Beyond that central pledge, signatories are asked to:

    • Articulate explicit criteria for hiring, tenure, and promotion that credit scientific content over the venue of publication
    • Consider a broad range of research outputs — including datasets, software, and preprints — not only journal articles
    • Publish a statement outlining how the organisation intends to implement DORA’s principles

    DORA’s own registry records over 27,000 individual and organisational signatories across 174 countries, according to the live signer count maintained at sfdora.org. Notable organisational signatories include the seven UK Research Councils under UKRI and, since May 2020, Springer Nature — the first major research publisher to sign.

    How Does DORA’s Commitment Differ from CoARA’s?

    DORA and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) are often mentioned together, but their signatory obligations are not equivalent. DORA asks institutions to endorse a principle and publish a statement; CoARA asks institutions to commit to a structured, time-bound implementation process. CoARA’s Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment was published in July 2022 and has attracted more than 800 signing organisations, including funders, universities, and learned societies.

    Feature DORA (San Francisco Declaration) CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment)
    Founding document Declaration published 13 May 2013 Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, published July 2022
    Core ask Stop using journal-level metrics as a proxy for article or researcher quality Adopt 10 core commitments covering criteria, procedures, and tools for assessment
    Reporting requirement Public statement required for new organisational signatories since November 2022; no fixed deadline Action plan required within one year of signing
    Oversight Not an accrediting body; does not audit signatories Governed by a General Assembly and Steering Board; Secretariat hosted by the European Science Foundation
    Reported signatories 27,000+ individuals and organisations in 174 countries 800+ organisations

    In practice, DORA functions as a values statement institutions can sign quickly, while CoARA functions as an implementation programme with a governance structure and a submission deadline. Many organisations — including several UK universities and Science Europe members — hold both, using DORA as the founding principle and CoARA as the operational framework.

    What Should an Institution Check Before Signing DORA?

    Because DORA is unaudited, the real work happens internally, before and after the signature. Institutional leaders should treat signing as the start of a governance exercise, not the end of one.

    • Confirm HR, promotion committees, and funding panels understand what “not using the Journal Impact Factor” means in practice for their existing criteria
    • Audit current hiring, tenure, and grant-review documentation for explicit or implicit journal-name dependence
    • Draft (or update) the public statement now required for organisational signatories, per DORA’s Engagement and Outreach Policy, approved 2024
    • Decide whether to pursue CoARA membership alongside DORA, given CoARA’s one-year action-plan deadline
    • Name an internal owner for ongoing implementation — since DORA does not audit compliance, accountability has to be self-imposed

    Institutions that skip this internal groundwork risk the outcome DORA itself has flagged publicly: a signatory whose day-to-day assessment practice has not actually changed. Reform requires deliberate revision of hiring and promotion documentation, not a signature alone.

    Common Questions About DORA Signatories

    What does DORA stand for?

    DORA stands for the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, a set of research-assessment reform principles published on 13 May 2013. It is unrelated to the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act, which regulates financial-sector ICT risk and shares the same acronym. Readers researching signatory obligations should confirm they mean the research-assessment declaration.

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

    A DORA signatory commits to principles against using journal-level metrics in hiring, promotion, and funding, with no mandatory reporting deadline. A CoARA signatory commits to 10 explicit reform commitments and must submit a public action plan within one year of signing — making CoARA the more prescriptive route.

    Does DORA apply to UK research institutions?

    Yes. UKRI and each of its seven constituent Research Councils are DORA signatories in their own right, and Science Europe reported that 60% of its member organisations had signed DORA by March 2023. DORA carries no jurisdictional restriction — any UK university, funder, or publisher can sign voluntarily.

    What happens after an institution signs DORA?

    Signing is only the start: organisational signatories must publish a statement describing how they will implement DORA’s principles, under DORA’s Engagement and Outreach Policy (approved 2024). DORA does not audit signatories or revoke signatory status, so ongoing implementation depends entirely on internal institutional governance.

    What This Means for Institutional Strategy

    The practical distinction for institutional leaders is one of pace versus prescription. DORA delivers a values commitment that can be adopted in weeks and signals good faith to researchers and funders. CoARA delivers a structured reform pathway with a governance body, working groups, and a one-year deliverable, better suited to institutions ready to formalise assessment reform as a programme rather than a statement.

    Research administrators — through bodies such as ARMA, EARMA, and INORMS — increasingly treat the two as complementary rather than competing: DORA as the founding principle cited in policy documents, CoARA as the operational mechanism for tracking and reporting progress. Institutions weighing either commitment should map both sets of obligations against existing hiring, promotion, and funding criteria before signing either declaration, so that the public statement reflects a change already under way rather than a promise made in advance of it.

  • 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.