The DORA team is excited to invite you our online event focused on advancing responsible research assessment practices in India, on June 06, 2025, 03:00 PM (India Standard Time). You can register at https://bit.ly/RRA-in-India.
Hear from eminent scholars and policymakers Prof. K. VijayRaghavan, Prof. S. C. Lakhotia and Dr Michael Arentoft in a panel moderated by DORA Vice-Chair Dr Rebecca Lawrence and DORA Steering Committee Member Dr Moumita Koley, as they discuss the current state, challenges, and best practices in research assessment in India and worldwide. This event aims to foster awareness among researchers, institutions, and policymakers to enhance understanding and commitment towards fair and transparent research evaluation.
Learn more about our esteemed panelists:
Prof. K. VijayRaghavan
Professor Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan is the DAE Homi Bhabha Chair Professor and former director of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. From April 2018- April 2022, he served as the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India. Prior to that, from 2013- 2018, he was Secretary to the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. Till recently, VijayRaghavan was a Senior Editor at eLife and now is a member of its Board of Directors.
VijayRaghavan’s research interests are in the fields of developmental biology, genetics and neurogenetics, on the principles and mechanisms that control the nervous system and muscles during development, and how these neuromuscular systems direct specific locomotor behaviours.
In addition to continuing his laboratory’s research interests, VijayRaghavan is currently involved in studying how sustainable development can be enabled in the context of climate change and the energy crisis. In this context, his focus is on how the university system in India can be empowered to this task, and how industry collaboration in research can be enhanced.
VijayRaghavan is a Fellow of the Indian Science Academies. In 2012, he was elected a fellow of The Royal Society and was conferred the Padma Shri in 2013 by the Government of India. He is a foreign member of the US National Academy of Sciences, of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, and a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Prof. Subhash Chandra Lakhotia
Professor Subhash. C. Lakhotia, currently a lifetime Distinguished Professor at the Department of Zoology of Banaras Hindu University, obtained his PhD from University of Calcutta in 1970 for work on dosage compensation in Drosophila. He has been actively involved in teaching and research since 1971. His research has largely used the Drosophila model to study diverse areas like developmental gene expression and regulation, replication in chromosomes, cell stress response, long non-coding RNAs, neurodegeneration, tumor biology, Ayurvedic biology etc.
He has been proactively involved in discussions on quality of higher education and research, publication ethics, and assessment policies. Leading by example, Prof. Lakhotia is a strong votary of improving the quality of research journals published in India.
He was Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy and had been member of the editorial boards of Current Science, Journal of Biosciences, Cell Stress & Chaperones. RNA Biology and Annals of Neurosciences. An elected fellow of all the three science academies in India, and a Senior Fellow of the Cell Stress Society International (USA), he is recipient of several awards like INSA Young Scientist Medal, SS Bhatnagar Prize, UGC Career award, UGC National Lecturer, UGC JC Bose Medal, INSA Aryabhata Medal, SERB Distinguished Fellowship etc.
Dr Michael Arentoft
Dr Michael Arentoft is Head of Unit, Open Science and Research Infrastructures, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission. He was previously Deputy Head of International R&I Cooperation Strategy, Innovation Union policy officer, Acting Head of Strategy for ICT R&I, Sector Head of ICT R&I Work Programme and Planning, coordinator of ICT Essential Technologies and Infrastructures, and project officer in High Performance Computing and Networking. Before joining the EC, he was with Computer Resources International and with Rovsing International. His educational background is from the University of Pennsylvania’s Computer and Information Science PhD program and from the Technical University of Denmark’s Electrical Engineering Master’s program.
Dr Moumita Koley
Moumita Koley is a senior research analyst at the DST-Centre for Policy Research, IISc, Bangalore, India, and a Research Fellow at the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), UK. She worked as a consultant for the International Science Council’s Future of Scientific Publishing project between March 2023 and June 2024. Her work focuses on advancing the accessibility of scientific knowledge, fostering an efficient and responsible research ecosystem, and promoting research that responds to local needs. She is a member of the International University Association (IAU) Open Science Expert Group and serves on the steering committee of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), representing Asia.
Dr Rebecca Lawrence
Rebecca Lawrence is Managing Director of the open research publisher, F1000, now part of Taylor & Francis. She was responsible for the launch of F1000Research in 2013 and has subsequently led the initiative behind many funder-based publishing platforms for the EC, Gates Foundation, Wellcome and others, that aim to provide a new trajectory in the way scientific findings and data are shared.
She is currently Vice-Chair of DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) and was a member of the EC’s Open Science Policy Platform, chairing their work on next-generation indicators and Editor of their final report. She was a member of the US National Academies (NASEM) Committee on Advanced and Automated Workflows, and has been co-Chair of many working groups including for Research Data Alliance (RDA) and ORCID. She has worked in STM publishing for over 25 years and holds a PhD in Pharmacology.