The Finnish Career Assessment Matrix (FIN-CAM): supporting responsible researcher assessment

During the DORA National and International Initiatives Discussion Group meeting on September 29, 2026, members gathered to examine how high-level principles of responsible research assessment can be translated into concrete, transparent, and usable assessment criteria. We heard a presentation from Mira Söderman (Coordinator on Responsible Assessment) and Janne Pölönen (Secretary General for Publication Forum) from the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV), who introduced the newly developed Finnish Career-Assessment Matrix (FIN-CAM). Watch back on the presentation and find out opportunities to engage with initiatives across the world!

FIN-CAM: Operationalizing RRA Principles Across the Assessment Lifecycle

While responsible research assessment principles are now widely established and endorsed globally, institutional implementers consistently face the challenge of turning abstract values into practical, day-to-day evaluation criteria. FIN-CAM bridges this gap between principles and practice. FIN-CAM is an openly accessible online tool designed to support diverse, systematic, and transparent evaluation of individual researchers across various career stages and assessment contexts. 

Core Philosophy and Framework Architecture

A menu of options, not a checklist. FIN-CAM provides a comprehensive menu or palette of assessment dimensions, but it is explicitly not intended as a rigid checklist where candidates are expected to tick every box. Instead, assessment organizers select and weight only the competencies relevant to a specific role, discipline, or context.

The matrix organizes over 100 specific skills, competencies, and merits across six broad competence areas:

1. Research, development, and innovation activities
2. Education and supervision
3. Societal interaction
4. Participation in the art and research community
5. General researcher skills
6. Background information and formal qualifications

In line with DORA and CoARA principles, the primary focus is on qualitative evaluation. Quantitative indicators are included solely as optional supporting context rather than primary evaluation drivers. It builds on national and international competency and CV models, including the Finnish TENK CV, which is the nationally recommended academic CV framework for researchers in Finland (2005/2020), OS-CAM (2017), NOR-CAM (2021), the University of Turku’s Toolbox for Responsible Assessment (2022), the University of Oulu’s Career Assessment Matrix (2022), ResearchComp (2022), and UKRI’s Résumé for Researchers narrative CV format.

Development of FIN-CAM and use cases

It has been a multi-year development journey. Development began following Finland’s 2020 Recommendation for the Responsible Evaluation of a Researcher. Guided by a national Steering Board, the contents were informed by a 2023 national survey of Finnish researchers regarding career assessment diversity, followed by a 2025 public consultation and web tool development supported by CoARA Boost Cascade Funding in partnership with the University of Turku and Lapland University of Applied Sciences.

This funding allowed for identifying and mapping the end-to-end process support that FIN-CAM can offer to four distinct user groups, across the entire evaluation lifecycle:

• Assessment Organisers: Define the competence profile, criteria, and weightings for a position and communicate them transparently to applicants.
• Applicants/Researchers: Use the matrix to reflect on their skills and prepare structured CVs, portfolios, or narrative CVs.
• Expert Evaluators: Apply agreed-upon criteria systematically and consistently during peer review.
• Decision-Makers: Document assessments, justify final selections transparently, and provide constructive feedback.

FIN-CAM Online Tool Functionalities

The online tool allows users to explore competencies via an interactive sunburst diagram or a left-hand navigation menu. Users can search for specific skills, add selected criteria into a customizable selection, prioritize mandatory versus asset criteria, export configurations directly to Excel or CSV for further institutional editing, and share custom criteria sets via direct URL links. The tool will be openly hosted on the TSV website in Finnish, English, and Swedish without requiring user registration. To explore the tool, visit the FIN-CAM Online Demo Report, read the FIN-CAM Use Case Report, and access the policy brief Career Assessment Matrices: From Principles to Practice.

Discussion: Global Cores, Hyper-Competition, and Complementary Team Profiles

The presentation sparked an engaging Q&A session among regarding practical implementation:

• Exploring a “Global Core” and living matrices: In response to a question from regarding whether a shared “global core” of assessment dimensions could be codified to reassure mobile researchers, the presenters noted that while defining a universal core is complex, harmonizing terminology and collecting user feedback over time will help refine matrices without making constant, disruptive updates.
• Qualitative judgment under hyper-competition: Drawing from Latin American assessment contexts, there was an interesting discussion on the challenge of conducting qualitative peer review during severe budget cuts, where hundreds of candidates who compete for very few tenure positions and panels often revert to quantitative scoring grids. Janne Pölönen emphasized that counting publications remains a poor proxy for quality, noting that matrices like FIN-CAM help committees establish explicit, transparent qualitative criteria before evaluation begins, preserving expert judgment on consequential decisions such as hiring in competitive systems.
• Building complementary research teams: Presenters highlighted a use-case example that emerged during a workshop at Lapland University of Applied Sciences. In this scenario,  FIN-CAM was used to map complementary team competencies for an innovation project, allowing organizers to recruit individuals with diverse strengths (e.g., communication, stakeholder engagement) rather than expecting every candidate to excel in all areas.

Updates and opportunities for collaboration

The meeting concluded with a roundtable where group members shared global updates and upcoming activities:

• Research Evaluation Global Alliance (REGA): Lizzie Gadd announced the transition of the INORMS Research Evaluation Group into REGA to an international alliance governed by an International Advisory Board with an open mailing list to broaden regional participation. You can find more at https://re-ga.org and anyone interested can join the mailing list by signing up at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=REGA. 
• MA3 Challenge (ORCA): Caitlin Schleicher shared that ORCA’s $250k academic appointment implementation grant cohort is underway. There will be a new targeted partnership opportunities for professional societies and higher education anchor institutions opening in January for US-based organizations.
• Barcelona Declaration: Bianca Kramer invited members to the hybrid 2026 Berlin Conference focusing on institutional and funder implementation of open research information, alongside an ongoing funder metadata survey. You can register your interest in joining the conference at https://barcelona-declaration.org/conference_2026_berlin/. 
• Open Research Funders Group (ORFG): Emily Ford highlighted ORFG’s input on US NIH grant peer review RFIs, upcoming private funder playbooks, and the 2026 Funder Policy Landscape Report: Open Research Funders Group. (2026). ORFG Funder Policy Landscape Report and Recommendations: 2026. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20451484.
• Metascience 2027: Kelly Cobey shared the save-the-date for Metascience 2027 in Montreal: June 14–16, 2027. More information is available at https://metascience.info/. 
• UK CoARA National Chapter: Anna Seager outlined upcoming workshops assisting UK institutions with REF preparations and narrative CV implementation, alongside their next open meeting on December 3.
• Irish Research Assessment: Sally Smith highlighted Trinity College Dublin’s participation in a Cambridge/UKRI narrative CV trial and ongoing engagements with senior Irish policymakers under their national research policy Impact 2030.
• CoARA & EU Horizon Projects: Janne Pölönen highlighted upcoming CoARA Steering Board elections and three EU-funded projects on responsible assessment: REALISE – Responsible Evaluation and Assessment Leading to Inclusive Scholarly Excellence: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101291517/pl; RDA – Pacing the way towards a systematic uptake of emerging reformative approaches to RTD assessment across the EU research ecosystem: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101265108; ARION – Advancing Research Assessment through integrated Open practices and Narrative: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101287335. 
• DORA Initiatives: Giovanna Lima highlighted DORA’s Scholarly Communication Guide partnered events—including an October 7 session on recognizing peer review with PRE Review—and ongoing work synthesizing community input for DORA’s next strategic plan.

Each quarter, DORA holds a Community of Practice (CoP) meeting for National and International Initiatives working to address responsible research assessment reform. This CoP is a space for initiatives to learn from each other, make connections with like-minded organizations, and collaborate on projects or topics of common interest. Meeting agendas are shaped by participants. If you lead an initiative, coalition, or organization working to improve research assessment and are interested in joining the group, please find more information here.