San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment turns 10 years old
DORA will promote a series of events in May 2023
Resulting of the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting held in December 2012, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) has just celebrated its 10th anniversary. The Declaration consists of a series of recommendations to promote the improvement of research assessment. DORA currently has over 22,000 signatories, including individuals and organisations, in 159 countries.
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the DORA steering committee is organising a week-long celebration consisting of two parts: two plenary sessions and a week-long decentralised programme of local and regional events.
The plenary sessions will be held online and are intended to discuss the state of the field, the last decade of work and future plans. The sessions will be divided by location - the Asia Pacific Plenary and the Africa, Americas and Europe Plenary, on 16 May. More information and the link to registration are available on the DORA page.
In addition to the core programme, DORA encourages its signatories and the worldwide community to submit proposals for local, face-to-face, hybrid or online events between 15 and 19 May. Proposals can be submitted through this link, where you can also consult the calendar with local events already confirmed.
Improving research evaluation
DORA promotes recommendations across a range of topics, as well as targeting its recommendations to the various stakeholders in research development - funding agencies, institutions, publishers, organisations providing metrics and researchers. More broadly, the Declaration stresses:
- the need to eliminate the use of journal-based metrics, such as the impact factor, in funding, appointment and promotion considerations;
- the need to evaluate research on its own merits, rather than relying on the merits of the journal in which it is published; and
- the need to invest in the opportunities offered by online publishing (for example, relaxing unnecessary limits on the number of words, figures and references in articles, and exploring new indicators of importance and impact).
Other initiatives to improve research evaluation have gained international repercussions, such as the Agreement for the Reform of Research Evaluation, launched in 2022 and signed by the UC. The University of Coimbra is also a signatory of DORA through the Centre for Classical and Humanistic Studies.
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Read the full declaration, with translations available in several languages: https://sfdora.org/read/
Check the list of signers
Promote the event with the hashtag #DORAat10.