Project TARA

Tools to Advance Research Assessment (TARA) is a project to facilitate the development of new policies and practices for academic career assessment.

Dashboard
An interactive online dashboard that tracks criteria and standards academic institutions use for hiring, review, promotion, and tenure around the world.

Toolkit
A toolkit of resources informed by the academic community to support academic institutions working to improve policy and practice. 

Survey
A survey of U.S. academic institutions to gain a broad understanding of institutional attitudes and approaches to research assessment reform.

Project TARA is supported by a generous three-year grant from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. It will help DORA identify, understand, and make visible the criteria and standards universities use to make hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions. This information will be used to create resources and practical guidance on research assessment reform for academic and scholarly institutions.

Latest news

Project timeline

     Dashboard          Toolkit          Survey

2021
Jul. 2021

Funding received

DORA is awarded a three-year, $1.2M grant from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin.

Sep. 2021

First Project TARA community call: dashboard scoping event

DORA holds its first community call to gather feedback from the community about the development of and criteria to be included in the TARA dashboard.

Oct. 2021
Oct. 2021

Identify source material for the dashboard

Through Nov. 2021: Collect resources to be included in the dashboard.

Nov. 19, 2021: Second Project TARA community call: sprint to gather insight on materials to be included in the dashboard

Nov. 2021
Dec. 2021
Dec. 2021
2022
Jan. 2022
Mar. 2022
Mar. 2022
Mar. 2022
Apr. 2022
May. 2022
May. 2022

Refine toolkit resources

Through Sep. 2022.

Oct. 2022
Nov. 2022
2023
Jan. 2023
Apr. 2023

Get involved!

Please describe your idea for a resource to support the development of fair and responsible research assessment practices.
(Optional) Provide your name and email so that someone from the Project TARA team can follow-up about your idea.
Name

Upcoming events

  • Stay tuned for events in 2023

Press coverage

  • How academia is exploring new approaches for evaluating researchers, June 2023
  • The Scientific workplace in 2021, December 2021
  • Dashboard will track hiring and promotion criteria,  August 2021
  • DORA receives grant to accelerate research assessment reform,  September 2021

Project TARA team

  • Stephen Curry, DORA
  • Zen Faulkes, DORA
  • Haley Hazlett, DORA
  • Sarah de Rijcke, Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University
  • Alex Rushforth, Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University
  • Marta Sienkiewicz, Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University
  • Ruth Schmidt, Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology
  • 4Site Studios
  • First Create The Media

Dashboard Advisory Group

Terms of Reference

  • Fernanda Beigel, CONICET-Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Argentina
  • Tanita Casci, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
  • Kelly Cobey, University of Ottawa Heart Institute and the DORA Steering Committee, Canada
  • Chris Erdmann, American Geophysical Union, United States
  • Kim Huijpen, Universities of The Netherlands, Netherlands
  • Christopher Long, Michigan State University, United States
  • Andiswa Mfengu, University of Cape Town, South Africa
  • Tanja Strøm, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
  • Lin Zhang, Wuhan University, China