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October 28, 2024
19 representatives from 7 research funder organisations participated in the last quarterly Asia-Pacific Funder Discussion Group hosted by DORA. New DORA staff members, Liz Allen and Janet Catterall were introduced to the group. The position of DORA Program Manager is currently vacant. DORA updates to the group included the upcoming implementation guide and guidance document,…
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September 6, 2023
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…
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August 8, 2023
Each quarter, DORA holds two Community of Practice (CoP) meetings for research funding organizations. One meeting takes place for organizations in the Asia-Pacific time zone and the other meeting is targeted to organizations in Africa, the Americas, and Europe. If you are employed by a public or private research funder and interested in joining the…
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July 18, 2023
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…
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January 24, 2023
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…
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August 18, 2022
Each quarter, DORA holds two Community of Practice (CoP) meetings for research funding organizations. One meeting takes place for organizations in the Asia-Pacific time zone and the other meeting is targeted to organizations in Africa, the Americas, and Europe. If you are employed by a public or private research funder and interested in joining the…
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June 6, 2022
Narrative CVs have become a potential avenue to recognize the broad range of a researcher’s scholarly contributions. They can be used as a tool to move toward a “quality over quantity” mindset in career evaluation, help reduce the emphasis on journal-based indicators, and better accommodate non-linear research career paths. To examine the merits and drawbacks…
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January 19, 2022
Funding organizations signal what is valued within research ecosystems by defining the criteria upon which proposals and applicants are assessed. In doing so, they help to shape the culture of research through the projects and people they support. Focusing on a limited set of quantitative criteria favors a narrow view of research and disincentivizes creativity…
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September 16, 2021
Bias influences the decisions that impact academic careers, from peer review and publication to hiring and promotion. With these ongoing and systemic issues in mind, DORA’s June and July funder discussions focused on navigating system biases in decision-making. Ruth Schmidt, Associate Professor at the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology, gave a presentation…
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April 27, 2021
 “When quantitative measures have an outsized impact on how people are rewarded, it can increase the temptation to focus on a narrow set of activities and reduce investment in other meaningful, but less rewarded, achievements.” Using traditional bibliometric standards of “quality” to inform research assessment can have a deleterious effect on how and what types…
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April 12, 2021
Narrative CV formats have been implemented by multiple research funding organizations, such as the Dutch National Research Council, the Swiss National Science Foundation, Luxembourg Research Council, and UKRI, in an effort to de-emphasize flawed quantitative indicators of research quality while capturing qualitative aspects of research contributions. Though multiple organizations are currently experimenting with narrative CVs,…
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March 29, 2021
Research culture is influenced by the ways in which research and researchers are assessed. For example, funding criteria such as journal prestige can cause researchers to focus their efforts on publishing in a small subset of scientific journals. Though this increases competition, it can inadvertently lead assessors to overlook other types of research outputs, contributions,…
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November 19, 2020
The Dutch Research Council, Science Foundation Ireland, Swiss National Science Foundation, and UKRI are all experimenting with narrative CV formats as part of their evaluation of grant proposals. At DORA’s virtual funder discussion on September 23, 2020, Rochelle Fritch and Laura Mackey presented Science Foundation Ireland’s (SFI) ongoing work to develop a narrative CV format for its funding mechanisms.
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September 23, 2020
As part of DORA’s effort to increase communication about innovative policies and practices for assessing research, we expanded the funder discussion series by hosting our first virtual meeting for the Asia-Pacific region on Tuesday, August 18, 2020.
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July 23, 2020
Communication is an important mechanism to increase the uptake of responsible research assessment practices at universities and funding agencies. To help, DORA brings together public and private research funders for a virtual meeting each quarter to discuss new policies, practices, and pilot experiments for assessing research. On Thursday, June 25, 2020, Claire Fraser, senior policy advisor at Research England and Greg Tananbaum, director of the Open Research Funders Group (ORFG), provided updates on their latest efforts to improve research assessment.
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April 14, 2020
DORA launched a new virtual discussion series for public and private research funders on Wednesday, March 26. The goal of the series is to increase communication about research assessment reform by providing a space for funders to share and discuss new initiatives. We hope this will ultimately serve as a platform to accelerate the spread of good research assessment policies and practices.