CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: research assessment reform

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • CoARA National Chapters: How Reform Spreads Institution by Institution

    CoARA national chapters are the country-level structures through which the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment turns its 2022 Agreement into local policy. As of mid-2026 there are 20 active chapters across Europe, each translating a shared set of commitments into national funding, hiring, and promotion practice — at very different speeds and with very different levels of traction.

    CoARA is a coalition of more than 800 research organisations, funders, assessment authorities, and professional associations that agreed in July 2022, via the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, to move evaluation away from publication counts and journal-based metrics and toward qualitative, peer-informed judgement. National chapters are the mechanism CoARA built to stop that agreement from staying a Brussels-level document and start it becoming a Warsaw-level, Dublin-level, or Bern-level one.

    What is a CoARA national chapter?

    A CoARA national chapter is a voluntary, member-proposed structure that gives an individual country’s CoARA members a dedicated forum to coordinate reform of research assessment in their own institutional and regulatory context. Chapters are not imposed by the CoARA Secretariat; they are proposed by members from a given country and open to any CoARA member from that country who wants to participate.

    Under CoARA’s own approval guidelines, a national chapter must be inclusive — reaching at least half of the CoARA member organisations in the country concerned — and must put in place mechanisms so that organisations outside CoARA can still contribute to, and benefit from, its work. Chapters commit to producing concrete tasks and outputs within a two-year window, and to feeding lessons learnt back to CoARA’s other national chapters and working groups.

    How many national chapters are there, and where?

    CoARA had 19 established national chapters as of December 2025, according to the Coalition’s own overview booklet published on Zenodo, with the Danish chapter the most recent addition, joining at the end of that year. The live national-chapters listing on coara.org, checked in mid-2026, shows the tally has since reached 20 countries.

    The current roster spans:

    • Andorra, Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary and Ireland
    • Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden
    • Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom

    Five chapters launched almost simultaneously in April 2024 — Switzerland (15 April), Spain (17 April), the Netherlands (22 April), Ireland (24 April) and Germany (26 April) — suggesting a coordinated first wave rather than organic, country-by-country emergence. Denmark’s arrival more than eighteen months later shows the model is still expanding, not just consolidating.

    How a chapter gets approved and what it must deliver

    Forming a national chapter requires a formal application submitted through CoARA’s online proposal form, assessed against published approval guidelines. The bar is deliberately structural rather than symbolic: reaching roughly half of a country’s CoARA member base is a materially harder threshold than gathering a handful of enthusiastic early adopters, and the two-year output clock forces chapters to name concrete deliverables rather than issue a statement of intent.

    CoARA also runs cross-chapter accountability mechanisms that go beyond the initial approval step — including a National Chapters Exchange Forum, whose third edition was held in Madrid, and regional forums such as the June 2026 hybrid event in Budapest on research excellence and language bias in assessment. These recurring forums exist specifically to compare what chapters have actually produced, not just to celebrate that they exist.

    What separates real reform from a signing ceremony

    The clearest predictor of a national chapter’s traction is not how long it has existed but whether it is embedded in a pre-existing national reform mechanism or built from scratch as a standalone forum. Chapters that plug into a national instrument that already has regulatory or institutional weight move faster than chapters whose only function, so far, is knowledge exchange between members.

    National chapter Launch signal Core mechanism Reform indicator
    Netherlands 22 April 2024 Extension of the existing national “Recognition & Rewards” programme Embedded in pre-existing reform infrastructure
    Norway Established chapter Shared development of institutional versions of the NORCAM career-assessment framework Embedded in a national assessment tool
    Poland Established chapter Formal review of coherence between CoARA commitments and Polish national regulation Statutory/regulatory alignment function
    Switzerland 15 April 2024 Cross-cantonal, cross-linguistic coordination of universities, universities of applied sciences and funders Structural federated-governance bridge
    Ireland 24 April 2024 Knowledge exchange on peer review, promotion criteria and funder DORA adoption Concrete but not yet statutory
    Denmark Late 2025 New national stakeholder-engagement platform Too early to assess traction

    Poland’s chapter is the sharpest illustration of the distinction. Its stated mission is not simply to discuss CoARA’s principles but to assess whether the Coalition’s agreed solutions are even compatible with existing Polish law, and to propose the national regulatory changes needed to implement them. That is a policy-drafting function, not a discussion group — and it is precisely the kind of concrete, two-year-deliverable output the approval guidelines require but cannot themselves guarantee.

    By contrast, a chapter whose public description is limited to “providing a platform for exchange” carries real signing-ceremony risk until it can point to a specific institutional policy, funder criterion, or promotion-committee rule it changed. Research administrators evaluating whether to lean on a given country’s chapter for benchmarking should ask for that named deliverable before assuming the chapter reflects binding national practice.

    Common questions and what comes next

    What is a CoARA National Chapter?

    A CoARA National Chapter is a country-level, member-proposed group within the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment that coordinates local implementation of the 2022 Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment. It must involve at least half of that country’s CoARA member organisations and deliver concrete outputs within two years.

    How many CoARA national chapters are there?

    CoARA confirms 19 established national chapters as of December 2025, with Denmark the most recent addition. The Coalition’s live national-chapters page shows the current total has since reached 20 countries, spanning most of the European Research Area plus Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

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

    A signatory has endorsed CoARA’s 10 core commitments and agreed to submit an action plan within a year; a full member has additionally joined the Coalition’s governance, gaining voting rights at the General Assembly. Both routes are free, and signatories can upgrade to member status at any time.

    How does an organisation start a CoARA National Chapter?

    A group of CoARA members from the same country applies via CoARA’s online proposal form against published approval guidelines, demonstrating support from at least half of the country’s member organisations. Approved chapters then have two years to produce named, concrete outputs supporting the Agreement’s national implementation.

    The national-chapter model is CoARA’s answer to a structural problem every voluntary standards coalition faces: a shared agreement signed by a research office in Brussels or a funder in Paris changes nothing on its own inside a promotion committee in Kraków or a hiring panel in Bergen. Chapters are the deliberate, two-year-clocked mechanism for closing that gap — and the growing cadence of exchange forums suggests CoARA itself is aware that some chapters will close it faster than others.

    For research administration teams tracking which national frameworks are worth benchmarking against, the practical takeaway is to look past chapter existence and ask what the chapter has actually produced against its two-year commitment — a published criterion, a revised promotion policy, a funder mandate — rather than treating membership in a CoARA national chapter as evidence of reform on its own. Institutions building out their own research administration capacity should watch the chapters embedded in pre-existing national instruments most closely, since those are the ones with the shortest path from commitment to enforceable practice.

  • What Is CoARA? The Coalition Reshaping Research Assessment

    CoARA — the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment — is a coalition of research funders, universities, and academies that formally commits its signatories to base research evaluation primarily on qualitative, peer-reviewed judgement rather than journal metrics and rankings. Launched via the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment in July 2022 and formally constituted in December 2022, CoARA now counts more than 800 signatory organisations working through national chapters and working groups to reform hiring, promotion, and funding criteria.

    CoARA is not a certification body or a single standard — it is a coalition structure built around a shared Agreement, a set of principles, and a menu of commitments that each signatory adapts to its own national and disciplinary context.

    What is CoARA and where did it come from?

    CoARA emerged from a two-year mutual learning exercise on research assessment reform that the European Commission ran alongside Science Europe and the European University Association (EUA), culminating in the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment being released in July 2022. Around 350 organisations formally adopted CoARA’s governance documents, rules of procedure, and code of conduct at the Coalition’s Constitutive Assembly on 1 December 2022, according to Science Europe’s official record of the meeting.

    The Coalition is explicitly framed as a European Research Area initiative with global reach: signatories include universities, funders, and academies well outside the EU. Horizon Europe has continued to underwrite the Coalition’s operating capacity directly — the CoARA Boost project (CORDIS grant 101131826) funds a cascade programme that supports pilot assessment reforms across member organisations rather than treating the Agreement as a one-off declaration.

    What does the CoARA Agreement actually commit signatories to?

    The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment rests on 10 guiding principles and 10 commitments, split into four core commitments every signatory must pursue and six supporting commitments that describe how reform should be resourced and communicated.

    • Recognise the diversity of contributions to and careers in research, beyond publication counts.
    • Base assessment primarily on qualitative judgement, with peer review central and quantitative indicators used only to support it.
    • Ensure any use of journal- and publication-based metrics — including the Journal Impact Factor and h-index — is responsible and ethical.
    • Avoid using institutional rankings in the assessment of individual researchers or units.
    • Commit the resources needed to reform assessment practices.
    • Review and develop assessment criteria, tools, and processes.
    • Raise awareness and provide training on new criteria.
    • Exchange practices and experiences within and beyond the Coalition.
    • Communicate progress publicly against the commitments.
    • Evaluate reforms using solid evidence and make data openly available.

    The first four items above are the core commitments; the remaining six are supporting commitments. Every signatory publishes its own action plan within one year of signing, setting institution-specific milestones against this shared list — the Agreement deliberately avoids prescribing a single implementation template.

    How does CoARA relate to DORA?

    CoARA and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) share a target — the misuse of journal-level metrics in individual assessment — but differ in scope, governance, and mechanism. DORA, launched in 2012, is a shorter declaration signatories endorse with comparatively light follow-through obligations. CoARA is a formally constituted coalition with governance documents, a Steering Board, mandatory action plans, and a network of national chapters.

    Feature DORA CoARA
    Launched 2012, San Francisco July 2022 (Agreement); constituted December 2022
    Primary focus Ending Journal Impact Factor misuse Systemic reform of hiring, promotion, and funding assessment
    Governance Declaration with voluntary sign-on Formal coalition, Steering Board, code of conduct
    Follow-through No mandatory action plan Action plan required within 1 year of signing
    Regional anchor Originated in the US biology community European Research Area–facilitated, global signatories

    Many institutions sign both: DORA and CoARA are complementary rather than competing, and CoARA’s own principles explicitly build on the earlier metrics-reform movement DORA started.

    What changes for a hiring or promotion committee after signing?

    Signing the Agreement is a distinct step from becoming a CoARA Member — a distinction most explainer coverage of CoARA skips entirely. Any organisation involved in research assessment can sign; only signatories that separately apply for Member status gain voting rights at CoARA’s General Assemblies and a seat in collective governance decisions. Membership carries no fee.

    For a hiring or promotion committee, the practical shift plays out over that first year:

    • Publication of an institution-specific action plan mapping current criteria against the 10 commitments.
    • Review of hiring, promotion, and tenure criteria to reduce reliance on the Journal Impact Factor and h-index as proxies for quality.
    • Piloting of narrative CV formats that let researchers describe contributions — datasets, software, mentoring, public engagement — in context rather than as a metrics table.
    • Training for panel members and administrators on the new criteria before they are applied to live decisions.

    Committees should expect a phased transition, not an overnight switch: CoARA’s commitments are directional and self-paced, so two signatory institutions can be at very different points of implementation at the same time.

    What do CoARA’s working groups and national chapters do?

    CoARA’s first Working Groups and National Chapters formed from September 2022 onward, giving signatories two parallel routes to collaborate: Working Groups tackle a specific reform topic (such as narrative CVs or open science indicators) across borders, while National Chapters — including the UK CoARA National Chapter — adapt the Agreement’s commitments to a single country’s funding and academic-employment context.

    The UK National Chapter, for example, brings together universities and funders to share how REF-adjacent assessment practices can align with CoARA’s qualitative-first principle without duplicating existing UK compliance frameworks.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What is the CoARA Agreement?

    The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment is the founding document signatories commit to, built on 10 principles and 10 commitments — four core, six supporting. It sets a shared direction and timeframe for reform while leaving implementation detail to each signatory’s own action plan.

    Is CoARA the same as DORA?

    No. DORA is a 2012 declaration focused narrowly on ending Journal Impact Factor misuse. CoARA is a formally governed coalition, launched in 2022, with mandatory action plans, a Steering Board, and a broader systemic-reform mandate that many institutions adopt alongside DORA.

    What are CoARA working groups?

    Working Groups are cross-border teams of signatories that develop practical tools and evidence on a specific reform theme, such as narrative CVs or responsible metrics. They formed alongside CoARA’s National Chapters from September 2022 and report progress back to the full Coalition.

    How many organisations have signed CoARA?

    More than 800 organisations had signed the Agreement as of 2026, according to CoARA’s own signatory registry — up from roughly 350 at the Coalition’s December 2022 Constitutive Assembly. Signatory numbers are published and updated on CoARA’s website.

    Implications for research administrators

    For research administrators, CoARA’s practical weight sits in the action-plan cycle, not the signature itself. A signature commits leadership to intent; the action plan is the document auditors, funders, and REF-adjacent panels will actually reference. Administrators drafting or reviewing hiring and promotion criteria should treat the four core commitments as a checklist against existing forms and rubrics — particularly any surviving requirement to state a Journal Impact Factor or numeric ranking.

    Funders that have signed layer a further obligation: grant assessment panels trained under CoARA’s principles must be able to justify qualitative judgements on record, which changes what evidence applicants are asked to submit.

    Where CoARA goes next

    CoARA’s trajectory depends on converting signatures into audited action-plan delivery — the Coalition’s own commitment to “communicate progress” implies a maturing accountability layer as more institutions pass their one-year and multi-year review points. Horizon Europe’s continued funding of the CoARA Boost cascade programme signals that the European Commission expects national chapters, not just the central Coalition, to carry implementation forward. Institutions evaluating whether to sign should read the Agreement’s commitments, not just its principles — the commitments are what an action plan, and eventually an audit, will be measured against.

    For related standards work on documenting research contributions, see CASRAI’s coverage of research administration practice and the CASRAI dictionary of research-assessment terminology.