DORA Newsletter Nov. 2021


Announcements


New Community Engagement Grants Program

DORA is pleased to announce the 2021 Community Engagement Grants: Supporting Academic Assessment Reform. These grants are for individuals or collaborative teams at academic institutions that are engaged in, or seeking to become engaged in, reforming how the work of researchers is valued in their communities. Applicants must be signers of DORA or sign DORA prior to submitting applications. DORA is especially keen for applications from community members from the following priority areas: Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Applicants may submit proposals for up to $4,000 USD to support projects that focus on research assessment reform. The deadline for applications is December 10, 2021.

Upcoming Events


November 19, 2021: DORA is seeking input to feed the development of an interactive online dashboard to track criteria and standards academic institutions use for decisions that impact research careers. We invite you to join us for a workshop where participants will work in small groups to discover and categorize examples of good practice as a way to start identifying source material for the dashboard.

December 7, 2021: Join us for a webinar that features the newest additions to the DORA, EUA, and SPARC Europe case study repository. Speakers will discuss key learnings from their experience developing and implementing more responsible academic career assessment approaches at the Open University, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), and the Latin American Forum for Research Assessment (FOLEC).

News


Funder discussion groups

Narrative CVs promote a broader recognition of research achievements during grant evaluation, but it is important to understand how bias can influence the assessment of narrative CVs to optimize their use. In September and October, DORA, in collaboration with the Funding Organizations for Gender Equality Community of Practice (FORGEN CoP), held a joint workshop for public and private research funders on Using Narrative CVs: Process optimization and bias mitigation. The event explored strategies to mitigate potential bias of the narrative CV as a tool for research assessment. A follow-up workshop is being planned for 2022. More information about the Funder Discussion Groups can be found here


Update on SPACE to evolve academic assessment 

Ruth Schmidt, Stephen Curry, and Anna Hatch published a feature article that presents DORA’s newest tool to aid in the iterative and systematic reform of academic assessment practices: SPACE. It focuses on five core capabilities to support the development of policies and practices and can be used by universities and institutions at all stages of the reform process. The article introduces SPACE and discusses what was learned during its development and piloting. Read the article to learn more about using SPACE for a range of contexts here.


Open Access Week 2021 Reading List

Re-evaluating and re-centering the importance of open access and open research requires building structural equity into the academic reward and recognition system. To celebrate Open Access Week 2021, DORA would like to share a few of the resources we’ve been reading, listening to, and viewing this week here.


2020 annual report

DORA’s annual report to recap our activities in 2020 has been published. Last year, we dedicated our efforts toward building a community of practice and finding new ways to support organizations seeking to improve the decision-making that impacts research careers. Catch up on all of DORA’s 2020 activities here.


Call for ideas of progress in 2021

Each year DORA publishes a list of new developments in research assessment that examines progress being made to improve the ways research is assessed and highlights essential readings. We invite you to share ideas for DORA’s annual list of developments in 2021!

Submit your ideas to DORA’s Program Director, Anna Hatch, at: info@sfdora.org by Friday, November 12. 

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