CoARA

CoARA – Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment is an international coalition of research and research funding bodies, national and regional evaluation authorities and agencies, whose aim is the reform of research evaluation.

Currently, evaluation is based on bibliometric criteria, such as citation indexes, which over time have proven inadequate to determine the real impact of research and its validity, contributing instead to the consolidation of the ‘publish or perish’ mechanism, with an unbalancing in favour of quantity of research instead of quality.

CoARA’s aim is to shift evaluation criteria from a quantitative to a qualitative benchmark, recognising the adoption of good practices, such as peer-review, as the main tool for evaluating and validating research. The change should have an impact on the criteria for recruiting researchers, on promotions and career advancement, and on the allocation of public research funding.

How to join

Institutions can join CoARA either by signing the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA) or by becoming a member.

Signing the Agreement requires the definition of an Action Plan by the institution.

Becoming a member means participating in Working Groups and National Chapters, being part of CoARA’s governance and decision-making, sharing good practices and participating in training within the different networks.

The 10 CoARA Commitments

Signing the Agreement involves a pledge by the participating institutions to progressively realise the ten defined commitments::

Recognize the diversity of contributions to, and careers in, research in accordance with the needs and nature of the research
Base research assessment primarily on qualitative evaluation for which peer review is central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators
Abandon inappropriate uses in research assessment of journal – and publication-base metrics, in particular inappropriate uses of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and h-index
Avoid the use of rankings of research organisations in research assessment
Commit resources to reforming research assessment as is needed to achieve the organisational changes committed to
Review and develop research assessment criteria, tools and processes
Raise awareness of research assessment reform and provide transparent communication, guidance, and training on assessment criteria and processes as well as their use
Exchange pratices and experiences to enable mutual learning and beyond the Coalition
Communicate progress made on adherence to the Principles and implementation of the Commitments
Evaluate practices criteria and tools based in solid evidence on the state-of-the-art in research on research, and make data openly avalaible for evidence gathering and research

CoARA and Unimi

The University of Milan:

signed the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA)
drafted and approved the Action Plan in June 2024: University of Milan – CoARA Action Plan, V1
is part of the CoAra Italian National Chapter.

The University of Milan has so far managed to fulfil 6 of CoARA’s 10 commitments. Below is the state of the art as of February 2025.

Commitment 1: the University’s Strategic Plan 2025-2030 stated as one of its objectives the definition and validation of guidelines for the evaluation of researchers’ careers, within the CoARA Italian National Chapter.

Commitment 2: training on peer-review and Open science for young researchers to raise awareness on FAIR principles and research integrity.

Commitment 5:

in June 2024 Unimi signed the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research with the commitment to use open data for reporting on research activities and coordinates the Evaluating Open data group;
implemented a dashboard on UNIMI authors and departmens collaborations using open and interoperable data: University of Milan’s Collaborations;
cooperates with Regione Lombardia for the inclusion of the University’s pubblications in the Open Data Portal, using interoperable open data.

Commitment 7: increase courses on the topic of quantitative evaluation to raise awareness of the possible distorting effects of using quantitative indicators in research evaluation.

Commitment 8: partecipation in the Working Groups of the National Chapter (Task 1.1, task 1.2, task 1.3, Task 2.3); partecipation in the European Working Group: TIER Towards an Inclusive Evaluation of Research.

Commitment 9: Unimi’s Roadmap was made public through the archiving on zenodo.org of the Action Plan in June 2024: University of Milan – CoARA Action Plan, V1.

Commitment 10: For the purposes of periodic evaluation of open science policies and their implementation, the “Direzione Performance, Assicurazione Qualità e Politiche di Open Science” publishes the Annual Report on Open Science Activities every year. Here the archive of Open Science reports.

Last update: 18 February 2025