On September 10-11th, 2024, CoARA hosted the first hybrid Working Groups Co-Chairs Forum in Helsinki, Finland, facilitated by the Finnish Federation of Learned Societies. The event brought together the Co-Chairs of CoARA’s Working Groups, Steering Board members, and the Secretariat in-person, providing an important opportunity to reflect on challenges and achievements from the past year.
As Working Groups approach the one-year milestone in their efforts toward implementing research assessment reform across key thematic areas, the theme of the event, Connecting Efforts, emphasized smooth knowledge exchange and coordination of ongoing work. Through presentations and open discussions, participants reflected on how to further harmonize efforts and ensure that the broader coalition remains firmly connected with ongoing processes and outputs.
In the first part of the event, the 13 Working Groups and their Co-Chairs share status updates with one another based on the following guiding questions:
- Where is your Working Group at currently?
- What are the challenges and opportunities you see or experienced so far in collaborating with or pursuing a dialogue with other WGs and National Chapters?
- What overlapping topics would you recognise among WGs?
Working Group presentations were given by the following Co-Chairs:
- Towards Open Infrastructure for Responsible Research Assessment: Presentation by Clifford Tatum (CWTS, Leiden University) and Angeliki Tzouganatou (OpenAIRE)
- Multilingualism and Language Biases in Research Assessment: Presentation by Janne Polonen (Federation of Finnish Learned Societies)
- Experiments in Assessment – Idea Generation, Co-Creation, and Piloting: Presentation by Sean Sapcariu (Luxembourg National Research Fund)
- Reforming Academic Career Assessment: Presentation by Rita Morais (European University Association – EUA) and Dr. Iris Uribesalgo (EU-LIFE)
- Responsible Metrics and Indicators: Presentation by Katarzyna Nawrot (Poznan University of Economics and Business)
- Improving Practices in the Assessment of Research Proposals: Presentation by Jean-Emmanuel Faure (European Commission)
- Supporting the Alignment of Research Assessment Systems with CoARA in Biomedical Disciplines Through Administrative Reforms and Governance: Presentation by Miriam Kip (Charite Universitaetsmedizin Berlin)
- Towards Transformations: Transdisciplinarity, Applied/Practice-Based Research, and Impacts: Presentation by Tina Kelkka (Laurea UAS) and Dr. Tino Johansson (University of Helsinki)
- Recognizing and Rewarding Peer Review (Online Session): Presentation by Johan Rooryck (Coalition S)
- Early-and-Mid-Career Researches (EMCRs) – Assessment and Research Culture: Presentation by Emma Day (CRAC-VITAE)
- TIER – Towards an Inclusive Evaluation of Research: Presentation by Silvia Penati (University of Milano-Bicocca)
- Ethics and Research Integrity Policy in Responsible Research Assessment for Data and Artificial Intelligence (ERIP): Presentation by Dr Perihan Elif Ekmekci (TOBB ETU)
- Evaluating Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) Research Globally: Presentation by Jonathan Deer (EASSH)
Through presentations, Co-Chairs identified key challenges such as how to address issues around limited resources given the voluntary nature of Working Groups, while stressing the need for increasing visibility and recognition for efforts and achievements, as well as the need for greater connectivity among WGs and National Chapters.
Following the presentations, the afternoon session opened the floor to discussion with the Working Groups to facilitate open dialogue on operational and strategic frameworks for the future of Working Groups. Focusing on the Connectivity of WGs, the discussions highlighted overarching themes integral for Working Groups, such as institutional and community recognition, addressing limited resources, connectivity between Working Groups as well as National Chapters, providing the coalition with resources they can rely on as part of their institutional reform efforts, and streamlining activities of the different Working Groups across transversal thematic areas.
In the second break out session, Sanja Terlević from YERUN represented the support team for Working Groups within the CoARA Boost project and outlined the Monitoring Framework as part of WG self-assessment. The Monitoring Framework enables Working Groups to keep track of the progress and lessons learned for outputs and facilitates connectivity with other Working Groups by sharing consistent updates. To further support the Working Groups, Karen Stroobants, on behalf of the Steering Board then presented a proposal on the first ideas for the Working Group Endorsement Framework, which aims to bring Working Groups’ activities and outputs to the broader CoARA coalition. Involving the Working Group Co-Chairs in the early stages of development, Working Group Co-Chairs were invited to provide feedback and eventually co-develop the framework. Following the forum, the Endorsement Framework will be further discussed during the CoARA General Assembly on the 9 December 2024.
During the sessions at the forum, CoARA Co-Chairs celebrated the progress made as Working Groups approach their one-year milestones. The forum also provided an opportunity to set the stage for the future of Working Groups through a co-developed strategy to advance the implementation of research assessment reform on a global scale. A huge thank you to the Finnish Federation of Learned Societies for their hard work facilitating this event.