The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA): Uniting stakeholders

DORA Unites Stakeholders to Call for Better Research Assessment Methods  

The academic world can be challenging for researchers. They often face pressure to publish their work in high-impact factor journals in order to secure promotions and grants for career advancement. Impact factor, an index to measure the number of citations of articles, is considered an important metric, with a higher impact factor increasing the researchers’ visibility and their institute’s prestige. 

Although this metric is commonly used by universities and funding bodies to decide on promotions and research proposals, researchers have increasingly criticized it as it may not necessarily measure a researcher’s output accurately. Moreover, the pressure to publish regularly in high-impact factor journals affects researchers’ mental well-being. The scientific community also realizes that some people may fall prey to such pressures and resort to unfair research practices.  

The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) 

Recognizing the implications of the demands of publishing on research integrity and research well-being, a group of journal editors and publishers developed a declaration in 2012. The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recognizes the need to improve methods for evaluating research outputs. 

DORA recommends various stakeholders – including scientists, funding agencies, institutions, and publishers – to forsake using journal-based metrics like journal impact factors to judge individual researchers. The declaration further calls on the need to assess research on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which it is published. 

Overall, DORA aims to advance practical and robust approaches to research assessment all over the world and across all scholarly fields. Since its conception during the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco, DORA has become a worldwide initiative covering all scholarly disciplines and participation from all interested parties. 

One of the main projects that DORA has undertaken is TARA (Tools to Advance Research Assessment), which aims to facilitate the development for new policies and methods to assess academic careers. 

Objectives of DORA 

The main goal of DORA is to call to attention new metrics in research assessment, and advocate for the responsible use of metrics that uphold core academic principles and promote consistency and transparency in decision making. 

DORA also aims to develop and implement new policies and practices for hiring, promotion, and funding-related decisions. Their goal is to ensure that these processes happen on the basis of metrics fairer than the impact factor index. 

The declaration also hopes to diversify the representation of researchers to design assessment practices that tackle structural inequalities in academia. 

Approaches of DORA 

To achieve their objectives, DORA regularly publishes blogs, organizes community interviews, and gives presentations on research assessment methods. 

DORA is also responsible for curating collections of good research practices to help individuals start dialogue about change. DORA also publishes commentaries that can guide various stakeholders on how to achieve DORA’s main objectives. The committee also convenes workshops, conferences, and meetings to gather the various stakeholders to work towards changing the system. 

DORA partners with organizations with similar goals to reform research assessment. They also advise academic institutions and funding bodies seeking to review and revise their research assessment guidelines and practices. 

Recommendations of DORA 

While DORA’s general recommendation is to forgo the use of journal-based metrics to assess researchers and their research, the declaration has specific recommendations for the various stakeholders. 

DORA calls for funding agencies to consider the value and impact of all research outputs in addition to publications and consider broader metrics to measure research impact including its influence on policy and practice. The declaration also urges funders to remain transparent about their decision-making criteria. 

In addition to recommending publishing platforms to reduce emphasis on journal metrics and offer a range of article-level metrics to assess a research product, DORA appeals to publishers to encourage responsible authorship practices.   

DORA urges metric-providing organizations to be transparent about data that forms the basis of assessing research output. An additional recommendation is also to be strict about manipulation of metrics and chalk documents detailing what constitutes such manipulations. 

DORA advices researchers involved in decision-making committees to decide hiring, funding, and tenure based on the scientific content rather than the platform where it is published. The guidelines also recommend that researchers challenge assessment practices that rely heavily on one particular measure of research output. 

The main recommendation of DORA to institutions is to be transparent about the criteria used for hiring, promotion, and funding-related decisions. In addition to judging the content of research rather than publication metrics, DORA also proposes that institutions consider the value and impact of all research outputs other than publications. 

Institutions and organizations that support DORA 

DORA has garnered support from several institutions and organizations all over the world that share similar ideals about metrics for assessing research. Among these are funding bodies like Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Swiss National Science Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and UK Research and Innovation. Publishers that support DORA include Springer Nature, PLOS, The Company of Biologists, and eLife. Independent organizations like the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) also back DORA. 

DORA also garners support from individual researchers, universities, departments, and libraries within universities.  

Over 25,000 individuals and organizations spread over 165 countries have signed DORA to date. 

How you can become a member 

DORA has an open call seeking individual researchers, librarians, research managers, journal editors, funding agency staff, or staff from non-profit organizations to sign the declaration as individuals. 

If your core research values align with those proclaimed by DORA, you can express your support by signing the declaration.