In the Netherlands, public academic knowledge institutions voiced a common ambition to modernise the current recognition and rewards system in the position paper, ’Room for everyone’s talent’ (2019). Since then, academic institutions in the Netherlands have established a Recognition and Rewards Programme, which strongly overlaps with the ambitions and goals of CoARA. The NC offers a natural extension of these existing efforts and will function in the national programme as a knowledge hub for advancing research assessment, both in the Netherlands and abroad. The participants in the Dutch CoARA chapter aim for a healthy and inspiring environment for academic staff where all talents are valued.

The Dutch CoARA chapter has a two-fold aim: 

• Create an active and open forum for knowledge exchange among Dutch CoARA members, as well as interested organisations outside the network. 
• Link the CoARA commitments to relevant developments in the Netherlands, like assessments of research units following the Strategy Evaluation Protocol and the national UAS Sector Protocol for Quality Assurance in research, creating diversity in career paths and recognising and rewarding Open Science. 

Ultimately, the Dutch CoARA Chapter hopes to strengthen research assessment reform by combining valuable insights from both national and international reform movements. 

Under the banner of Recognition & Rewards, Dutch academic institutions have worked to implement a series of reforms that strongly align with the aims of CoARA. Given this already existing framework of reform, it is not surprising that more than 30 institutions in the Netherlands have already signed the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA). 

Because of the close alignment between both movements, the chapter will operate within the scope of the national Recognition & Rewards Steering Group. It is also important that academic institutions and universities of applied sciences join forces in achieving the CoARA commitments and learning from each other. The impact is envisioned both in strengthening current actions towards reaching the CoARA commitments, as well as forming an important bridge between national and international developments with regards to research assessment reform. 

More concretely, impact can be envisioned along the following lines: 

An open forum: currently, there is limited contact between Dutch member organisations regarding The chapter aims to become a national hub for more structured contact, from in person meetings to a digital exchange of ideas; 

Achieving the commitments: as a national hub, the chapter offers a platform for (prospective) members to ask questions, give advice and share progress, thereby strengthening the drive to reach the CoARA commitments; 

Knowledge exchange: the chapter will play an important role in sharing good practices from the CoARA network with the national Recognition & Rewards programme. Likewise, it aims to be present at CoARA events to share the Dutch approach with others; 

Institutional awareness: by organising activities and formalising contact between Dutch CoARA members, the chapter also aims to create greater institutional awareness of CoARA, involving not only policy and HR staff, but also (where possible) academic staff.