Updated 14 May 2025

Launch of research project, ‘New ways of evaluating research and researchers – CoARA in the Norwegian research system (NyEval)’:

The research project, ‘New ways of evaluating research and researchers — CoARA in the Norwegian research system (NyEval),’ was launched in February. The project will follow reform work regarding academic assessment reform (CoARA and NOR-CAM) in Norway over the next four years. The lead researcher for the project is Professor Liv Langfelt from the NIFU Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research, and Education.

All academic staff at our 11 universities are currently being sent a questionnaire about how they experience assessments in employment and promotion processes today and what they believe should, or will be, emphasized in the future. A follow up questionnaire will then be sent in two years to track how far the reform work has progressed and whether changes in assessments have actually taken place.

Funders are also included in the project. Here, the aim is to identify funding agencies’ motivations to reform assessment of grant proposals and any changes in their evaluation criteria, application forms, CV templates and guidelines/instructions, focusing on changes relevant to CoARA or NOR-CAM.

We believe that this project will bring unique insight, not only for the academic system in Norway, but for the wider CoARA community.

We propose that the existing NORCAM Network is made into a Norwegian National Chapter. The network was established in September 2022 by Universities Norway and has a two-fold purpose:

1. To share experiences and best practices on the development of institutional versions of the NORCAM framework

2. To create an arena for discussing practical and strategic aspects of the European Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA) as well as CoARA, both for the institutions that have signed the agreement and for those who are considering this.

Hence, in Norway the NORCAM and the CoARA processes is two parallel tracks enforcing each other towards the same goal. See illustration: https://tinyurl.com/ycyhra2x
Member institutions are normally represented by two persons: one representing the rectorate and one from the HR department.

The network meets regularly (digital and in-person), for instance prior to major meetings or processes in CoARA, as well as sharing documents, progress reports and information on a Teamssite.