Rewards and recognition play fundamental roles in identifying research and innovation talent. In 2022, Science Europe created the Science Europe Values Framework for research organizations. In this 2023 piece, Science Europe builds on its Values Framework and provides practical recommendations and good practice examples that can drive positive research culture at the institutional level.
There are six recommendation categories:
- Autonomy/ Freedom: For recognition systems to foster free expressions of ideas, balanced with the needs of the local/national research systems
- Care and Collegiality: In order to recognize good leadership, teamwork, and mentorship that could help sustaining healthy research environment
- Collaboration: Rewarding the identification of collaborative activities where a range of competencies is required for the research activities proposed
- Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Promote diversity within research teams, and acknowledge the roles that different societies and cultures have on the career paths of researchers
- Integrity and Ethics: Reflect on how assessment criteria and peer review/panel processes can focus attention on the robust and reproducible research processes and good research practices
- Openness and Transparency: Open science practices should be explicitly recognized in assessment processes, and research organizations should provide clear guidance on the types of open science practices that they recognize
These recommendations were developed by the Task Force on Recognition Systems with consultation and comments from the Working Group on Research Culture and the Science Europe Governing Board.