QUEST Center
Good evaluation practice - EU Research Assessment Reform
On July 20, 2022, the European Commission and European science and higher education associations published the final agreement for research assessment reform.
Good evaluation practice - EU Research Assessment Reform
This agreement (https://coara.eu/sign/) provides a common direction for changes in the evaluation practice for research and researchers and aims to increase the quality of research. It contains principles of research assessment based on qualitative criteria and aspects such as open science, inclusion and diversity in science, which are to be applied in all member states.
Within the framework of the Europe-wide Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA, https://coara.eu/), it is planned that in the future organisations worldwide, including universities, research centers, public and private research funders, national as well as regional authorities and professional societies, will participate and work together to further develop the principles. The CoARA Secretariat is provisionally staffed by Science Europe, the European University Association (EUA) and the European Commission.
The signatories to the agreement commit to the shared vision of research assessment recognising the various outcomes, practices, and activities that maximise the quality and impact of research. This requires that evaluation be based on qualitative assessment, for which the peer review process supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators is central.
The agreement reinforces existing projects on research evaluation reforms at BIH and Charité, such as the MERIT project funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Open Data LoM project (https://osf.io/gehda/), or MERIT App Charité ((https://osf.io/p2vyw/).
The QUEST Center participated in several stakeholder meetings and comment periods to help develop the draft recommendations.
On October 21st, 2022, the BIH was one of the first research organisations in Germany to sign the agreement, alongside the DFG. Represented by Dr. Miriam Kip, BIH is involved in CoARA. A first meeting with all signing institutions is scheduled for early December 2022.
