DORA Declaration

Fair Evaluation of Researchers - DORA Declaration

The University has signed the DORA Declaration and has been implementing it since 2016.

For a long time, the journal impact factor was considered the most important criterion for assessing the performance of individual researchers. The citation rate of a journal (journal impact factor) does not allow an accurate estimation of individual achievements. That is why the DORA Declaration (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) recommends a more comprehensive assessment. The evaluation should therefore include not only publication-related factors, but also third-party funding, supervision of young researchers, achievements in teaching, innovation potential, transfer services, scientific integrity, open access or social skills.

The DORA Declaration makes the following recommendations:

• Do not use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.
• Be explicit about the criteria used to reach hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions, clearly highlighting, especially for early-stage investigators, that the scientific content of a paper is much more important than publication metrics or the identity of the journal in which it was published.
• For the purposes of research assessment, consider the value and impact of all research outputs (including datasets and software) in addition to research publications, and consider a broad range of impact measures including qualitative indicators of research impact, such as influence on policy and practice.