Widening countries call for greater say in reforming research assessment

21 Jun 2023 | News

As the process of reforming research assessment gains momentum, representatives of Widening countries share concerns that their perspectives will not be properly accommodated

Martin Bareš, Rector of Masaryk University in Czechia, thinks Widening countries are not getting enough of a say in the debate on research assessment reform

Addressing uneven research performance in the EU is among the key objectives of moves to reform research assessment, which has the overall aim of replacing the focus on metrics such as citations and number of papers published, with criteria that better reflect research impact.

Now, researchers in Widening countries are asking for a bigger say in how the reform is shaped.

Martin Bareš, Rector of Masaryk University, says that while the reform clearly reflects the expectations of the global scientific community, Widening countries appear not to be getting a proper say in the research evaluation debates, given the composition of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), the board which is steering the process.

The ‘Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment’ published in July 2022, lays out a routemap that…

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