FAQ

Signing the Agreement is an opportunity to signal publicly the willingness of your organisation to reform research assessment along the agreed Principles, and to implement the agreed Commitments according to the agreed timeframe. Signing the Agreement is also a precondition for joining the Coalition.

1. Joining the Coalition will bring support to the reform of research assessment. It will offer members the possibility to exchange knowledge, work together, test and pilot, and be supported by peers, for advancing in the process of research assessment reform. Collaboration will allow identifying, exchanging, or delivering, for example:

• Information on changes piloted and implemented by the members within the Coalition, and also beyond;
• Good practices, established or emerging from changes piloted, but also challenging experiences encountered and lessons learned;
• Recommendations and guidelines that can be considered by all or part of the Coalition members and beyond;
• Joint experimentations and initiatives;
• Information on the impacts – benefits and costs – of the changes implemented for further evidence-informed changes.

Coalition members will have the possibility to initiate and benefit from communities of practice on subjects of their choice. Examples of potential topics are:

• Peer review and qualitative evaluation;
• Narrative CVs;
• Responsible use of metrics;
• Use of metrics in the assessment of institutions by national evaluation agencies;
• Assessment of research projects by research funders;
• Tailoring criteria and processes by discipline, inter-disciplinary field or thematic area;
• The balance between research and other academic activities;
• Conflicts of interest and biases.

2. The Coalition will help members that are less advanced in the reform of research assessment, or that are at an early stage in this process, to identify and learn from successful ideas and practices from organisations that are further advanced in their reforms. At the same time, members that are more advanced assessment practices in relation to the goals set out in the Agreement will find a platform to share their expertise, support the development of a coherent assessment ecosystem and keep evolving their evaluation methods.
3. The Coalition will offer a space for the organisations from a given country responsible for reforming policies and regulations, to work together and advance on the topic. At the same time, it will offer access to experiences from other countries in Europe and beyond.
4. The Coalition will allow building a critical mass of stakeholders to interact also with national and regional authorities, including with the ERA Forum, to tackle any legal or administrative barriers that limit the implementation of changes to research assessment by research organisations.
5. The work of the Coalition will seek to avoid potential contradictions between different research assessment practices and frameworks, for the benefit of the broader research and academic community, especially young researchers.

At the moment, signatories of the Agreement and members of the Coalition are expected to be organisations from across the world that are (in accordance with the current draft Governance document of the Coalition):

• Universities, and their associations;
• Research centres, research infrastructures, and their associations;
• Academies, learned societies, and their associations, and associations of researchers;
• Public or private research funding organisations and their associations;
• National/regional authorities or agencies that implement some form of research assessment and their associations; and
• Other relevant non-for-profit organisations involved with research assessment, and their associations.

Organisations without legal personality have also the possibility to sign the Agreement and join the Coalition.

The Agreement and the Coalition are not open for individual persons. However, mechanisms for the involvement of individuals and especially of researchers will be planned by the Coalition.

No. Interested organisations from across the world can sign the Agreement. In accordance with the current draft Governance document of the Coalition, they can join the Coalition, provided they are:

• Universities, and their associations;
• Research centres, research infrastructures, and their associations;
• Academies, learned societies, and their associations, and associations of researchers;
• Public or private research funding organisations and their associations;
• National/regional authorities or agencies that implement some form of research assessment and their associations; and
• Other relevant non-for-profit organisations involved with research assessment, and their associations.

The collection of signatures to the Agreement was already launched. Authorised representatives can sign the Agreement and join the Coalition at any time by filling in the form available on the website on this page.

In accordance with the current draft Governance document of the Coalition, all organisations that have signed the Agreement through an authorised representative, and that are:

• Universities, and their associations;
• Research centres, research infrastructures, and their associations;
• Academies, learned societies, and their associations, and associations of researchers;
• Public or private research funding organisations and their associations;
• National/regional authorities or agencies that implement some form of research assessment and their associations; and
• Other relevant non-for-profit organisations involved with research assessment, and their associations.

are entitled to join the Coalition.

Those organisations may join the Coalition:

• by signing the Agreement through an authorised representative and by explicitly expressing interest to become a member when signing the Agreement;
• by expressing interest to join CoARA to the CoARA Secretariat – this may be done any time by the signatory authorised representative.

Memberships are then subject to Approval by the Steering Board. All organisations having signed the Agreement and having joined the Coalition will be invited to participate to General Assembly meetings, depending on when the Agreement has been signed.

Members may leave the Coalition at any time.

To join the Coalition, organisations must have signed the Agreement through an authorised representative, and be (in accordance with the Governance document of the Coalition):

• Universities, and their associations;
• Research centres, research infrastructures, and their associations;
• Academies, learned societies, and their associations, and associations of researchers;
• Public or private research funding organisations and their associations;
• National/regional authorities or agencies that implement some form of research assessment and their associations; and
• Other relevant non-for-profit organisations involved with research assessment, and their associations.

Since the Constitutive Assembly, compliance with these criteria are being checked by the Coalition Secretariat (ESF-Science Connect) and approved by the elected Steering Board of the Coalition.

Organisations can sign the Agreement at any time and consequently join the Coalition. However, the earlier organisations sign the Agreement and join the Coalition, the stronger their role in the decision-making process on the organisation and operation of the Coalition.

Indeed, the first organisations to sign the Agreement have been invited to the first meeting of the General Assembly of members of the Coalition (the “Constitutive Assembly”), during which the main governance documents have been adopted, the Steering Board has been elected, and the organisation hosting the Coalition Secretariat has been selected. Other important decisions related to CoARA activities will take place in the forthcoming General Assemblies.

The Constitutive Assembly, which was the first meeting of the General Assembly of members of the Coalition, took place on 1 December 2022. The Assembly, which brought together the organisations that signed the Agreement by 17 November and have confirmed membership in the coalition, officially launched CoARA and decided on the terms of its governance and operations.

More than 300 organisations participated in the Constitutive Assembly, formally adopting CoARA’s governance documents, rules of procedure and code of conduct. The Assembly also elected the Coalition’s Steering Board. The preliminary workplan and budget for the coalition were approved and European Science Foundation (ESF)-Science Connect was formally appointed as the CoARA Secretariat.

The Steering Board is a collegial body that aims to take its decisions by consensus. It is responsible for the overall oversight, strategy, work plan and sustainability of the Coalition. The Steering Board acts and decides on input from the Coalition members and other Coalition bodies.

The Steering Board, chaired by Rianne Letschert, has 11 members:

• Rianne Letschert, Chair (nominated by Maastricht University, Universities of The Netherlands and the Young European Research Universities Network – YERUN)
• Elizabeth Gadd, Vice-Chair (nominated by INORMS Research Evaluation Group) )
• Karen Stroobants, Vice-Chair (nominated by the Marie Curie Alumni Association and EuroScience)
• Lidia Borrell-Damián (Science Europe)
• Paul Boyle (European University Association)
• Yensi Alejandra Flores Bueso (Global Young Academy)
• Matthias Koenig (German Research Foundation – DFG)
• Eva Mendéz (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)
• Menico Rizzi (Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes – ANVUR)
• Sylvie Rousset (French National Centre for Scientific Research – CNRS)
• Toma Susi (Initiative for Science in Europe – ISE)

The General Assembly decides on the Governance of the Coalition, elects the President and the Steering Board of the Coalition, and decides on the organisation(s) that host the Coalition Secretariat. It also approves the strategy (proposed by the Steering Board) guiding the operations and activities of the Coalition as a whole, its annual work-plan and budget (prepared by the Secretariat), and the procedures and criteria for the operation of the Working Groups (proposed by the Steering Board).

Support to the operation of the Coalition will consist primarily of voluntary in-kind contributions from its members, as well as funding obtained from research funding organisations and/or cash contributions from members.

Options for more detailed funding models are being prepared and will be discussed in the following months with the organisations having already expressed interest in the initiative.

A CoARA preliminary Work Plan and Budget has been approved during the Constitutive Assembly on 1 December 2022.

Yes, organisations can leave the Coalition at any time by informing the Coalition Secretariat.

Those national or regional authorities that effectively implement research assessment can sign the Agreement and join the Coalition. However, the Coalition does not foresee any special, dedicated role to national/regional authorities in its governance. The Coalition shall be community-driven and all members will have equal voting and participation rights.

Together with Science Europe and the European University Association, the European Commission has acted as facilitator of the process for preparing the Agreement, and has been facilitating work and discussions on how the Coalition is organised and operates. Since the Constitutive Assembly, the European Commission has joined the Coalition in its quality of funder of research and innovation and participate in the operations of the Coalition in equal terms as other Coalition members.

Participation of organisations in the Coalition will be on a voluntary basis, and participants will keep full control on the steps they make to implement the Agreement and the speed of their reform journey, which can vary from one organisation to another depending on many factors, e.g. their starting point, the national or institutional administrative and legal framework conditions, their specific missions, the disciplines concerned or the assessment level. By joining the Coalition, organisations commit to share information on the progress made and lessons learnt in their reform journey, according to the timeframe included in the agreement. Sharing of information shall be done on the basis of self-assessment and by no means the progress of individual organisations will be validated by the Coalition.

DORA has welcomed the new Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and coalition as an important part of the growing international movement for research assessment reform, through a dedicated DORA statement. DORA has in fact been consulted from the early stages of this project, provided detailed feedback on early drafts of the Agreement, and has participated in the implementation group to define the modalities of operation of the coalition that supports the reform efforts by the signatories of the Agreement. Some organisations that signed DORA may be asking themselves whether they should also sign the new Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and join the coalition. Two possible scenarios can be envisaged:

In the first, an institution that has signed DORA but not yet travelled far down the road to reform could opt to sign the Agreement and join the coalition as a way of demonstrating a commitment to practical reform and participating in that endeavour with other research organisations. The Agreement aligns with the spirit of DORA, so any decision-making process could be fast-tracked by the organisational leadership.

In the second, if the institution has already implemented their commitment to DORA by reforming their research assessment practices, they may feel there is not a particular advantage in signing up. Nevertheless, they could still choose to sign the agreement to offer the benefit of their experience to other members of the coalition, develop further changes to research assessment in accordance to the Agreement, and support the development of a coherent assessment ecosystem.