ToolBox, IDIBAPS Talk Series: Research assessment – the view from DORA on the rationale and the practicalities of reform

On Tursday, March 30, 2023, at 14h, will take place the session 'Research assessment – the view from DORA on the rationale and the practicalities of reform' by Stephen Curry, Professor of Structural Biology in the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College (UK) where he also serves as Imperial’s first Assistant Provost for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. After the session, all IDIBAPS researchers can request a meeting with him.

The speaker has been an active campaigner in several key issues for the research and development sector. Among other relevant contributions in the analysis of the use of metrics in research assessment, he is currently chair of the steering group of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) which is actively promoting reform of research assessment worldwide.

The session will focus on DORA, as a campaigning initiative to improve the ways that research and researchers are evaluated. It aims particularly to highlight the problems associated with over-reliance on aggregate metrics like the journal impact factor or H-index in assessment processes. Such metrics have enduring appeal because they appear to offer the simplicity and objectivity of numerical analyses. However, it is necessary to be mindful of the subjective foundations of many performance metrics and the biases that perturb them. If the goal is moving to more robust and equitable forms of evaluation, the challenge now is to ensure that these are as effective and as efficient as possible.

This activity is open to people from inside and outside the institution. The event will be held only face-to-face, therefore everyone is invited to attend it in the Esteve Auditorium. Moreover, the session will be registered in order to allow disseminating it afterward.

The activity is organized with the support of the Fundación Española por la Ciencia y la Tecnología (FECYT) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. This is also promoted by the Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R) of the institution.

• Request a meeting with the expert by March 27th: seminaris@recerca.clinic.cat.