DORA and Projeto Métricas Launch DORA’s RFO Guide in Portuguese

To mark the launch, DORA convened a panel featuring leaders from two of Brazil’s most influential evaluation agencies: CAPES and FAPESP. The discussion highlighted how these institutions are expanding their assessment toward more holistic, multidimensional approaches to evaluating research quality, impact, and relevance.

CAPES: Shifting Incentives and Embracing Cultural Evolution

As the federal agency responsible for evaluating Brazil’s expansive postgraduate system, CAPES has integrated RRA as a conceptual pillar for its upcoming evaluation cycles. Professor Antônio Gomes de Souza Filho (Director of Evaluation at CAPES) emphasized that reforming academic evaluation is fundamentally a cultural challenge that requires participatory governance:

“The history of evaluation at CAPES and the principles of the guide teach us that the change we seek in science is, essentially, a cultural change. Because it is cultural, it is slow, difficult, and often frustrates us when we achieve only incremental changes. However, the core message is that research assessment only produces real transformations when it is carried out in a participative and shared way.”

He further detailed how CAPES is de-emphasizing simple quantitative indicators in favor of quality and relevance:

“We are distancing ourselves from simple quantitative metrics. More and more, our evaluation areas are incorporating other variables that qualify production… Today, some areas no longer require total output and only evaluate a small, highlighted selection. This is a very significant step forward, aligned with the principles of responsible assessment.”

Crucially, Gomes de Souza Filho stressed the importance of respecting university autonomy in this transition:

“The institution must exercise its academic autonomy… In the near future, postgraduate programs must make use the autonomy to define their own strategies and directions based on their infrastructure and faculty, without being mostly guided by CAPES’s evaluation expectations. The program does not belong to the agency.”

FAPESP: validating true excellence through narrative and rigor

FAPESP has been at the forefront of implementing qualitative assessment tools in São Paulo, most notably through its narrative-style curriculum summary (súmula curricular). Professora Helena Lage (representing FAPESP’s Scientific Directorate) discussed how prioritizing qualitative evaluation strengthens, rather than dilutes, scientific rigor:

“Adopting a qualitative evaluation does not exclude research excellence… FAPESP utilizes the ‘súmula curricular,’ where the researcher presents a narrative and selects three to five principal products, which do not necessarily have to be scientific articles. The evaluation areas are fully aware that this narrative must be valued.”

However, transition is not without its obstacles. Lage highlighted that while qualitative evaluation is harder work, discussion and alignment allow the agency to better assess the true impact and relevance of research.

Looking ahead, Lage also highlighted emerging questions around generative artificial intelligence and research evaluation. FAPESP is currently developing guidance on the responsible use of AI within research funding processes, including safeguards to preserve confidentiality and the integrity of peer review.

Throughout the discussion, participants emphasized that responsible research assessment should not be viewed as a standalone reform effort. Rather, it is closely connected to broader priorities including open science, research integrity, equity, interdisciplinarity, and societal impact, as discussed in Chapter 4 of the Guide.

As discussed during the launch, changing research assessment can create stronger incentives for behaviors that advance these agendas, helping align individual researcher incentives with the long-term interests of science and society. For instance, when assessment frameworks value qualitative contributions and diverse scholarly outputs, researchers are no longer penalized for investing time in open data curation or public engagement.

Connecting to a broader global agenda

The Guide provides a practical roadmap for funders seeking to embed responsible research assessment throughout the funding lifecycle, from program design and funding calls to decision-making processes, award management, monitoring, evaluation, and community engagement. By focusing on these intervention points, funding organizations can align their assessment practices with broader goals related to research quality, openness, integrity, equity, and societal impact.

This launch builds on a long-term collaboration between DORA and Projeto Métricas, coordinated by Professor Jacques Marcovitch. The partnership originated in 2022, when Projeto Métricas received a DORA Community Engagement Grant to foster discussions on responsible research assessment within the Brazilian research ecosystem. Since then, the collaboration has brought together researchers, research managers, evaluators, and institutional leaders through a series of workshops, publications, and community-building activities focused on advancing research assessment reform.

In 2025, these efforts culminated in a series of co-creative workshops, the publication of a White Paper on research assessment reform in São Paulo’s public universities, and the launch of the Portuguese translation of DORA’s Practical Guide for Research Performing Organizations (RPO Guide). Building on the trust, expertise, and workflows established through those activities, the partners were able to move even more rapidly in 2026, delivering the Portuguese translation of the RFO Guide just months after the release of the original English version.

We are delighted that along with our Guide partners, the GRC RRA Working Group and Science Europe, DORA is committed to ensuring that these practical tools are increasingly accessible to funders worldwide. To that end, we are pleased to announce that three additional translations of the RFO Guide are currently in active development, supported by the community benefitted by the Guide: French (supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada – NSERC), Spanish (supported by the National Agency for Research and Innovation of Uruguay – ANII), and Arabic (supported by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology – KACST and the Research, Development and Innovation Authority – RDIA).