Incentives & IndicatorsOngoing
MAI-I
Matters of Research Assessment and its Implementation.
Background / Rationale
Existing systems of research assessment no longer do justice to current requirements and developments in science and society, such as digitalization, diversification of research tasks, disciplines, and career paths, or the emergence of new formats of research outputs and application models. This misalignment is subject to various national and international reform initiatives on the part of politics and science signaling a change in the practice of research assessment. These include for example the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, Open Science Framework, and the position papers by the German Research Foundation on the status of publications in research assessment and on Open Science.
Objectives
The project aims to work together with the partners of the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) to develop strategies for the individual institutions on how current developments, e.g. in the context of the program of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), should and can be transferred into the practice of research assessment. These are intended to reflect the different objectives of the four institutions, and at the same time create synergies and similarities for the shared research environment in the recruitment of professors as well as tenure track evaluations.
Methodology
The project takes an agile, participatory approach conducting field and needs assessment that includes a scoping review and interviews. Throughout the entire process, the project commits to stakeholder engagement, capacity building, and knowledge exchange between the BUA institutions providing, among others, information sessions, workshops, and presentations.
Expected results / Implications / Perspectives
By promoting and guiding how RRI and open science approaches and robust assessment practices can be implemented into the research assessment practices of professorial and other tenure track appointment procedures at the BUA organizations, the project will contribute to organizational structures that emphasize the fair, diverse and robust selection of suitable candidates. It supports organizations in their commitment to put principles into actual practice. The rationale is to support the BUA organizations in the incorporation of changing paradigms of research excellence and research assessment into their strategic planning, and thus in sustaining or even increasing their competitiveness within the national and international research area. Furthermore, the implementation group aims to connect their results with other areas of research assessments and provide a science-based, participatory platform for knowledge and best practice exchange among BUA partners and other national and international actors.
