Group implementing EU-coordinated reforms also elects steering board chaired by Rianne Letschert
More than 300 organisations have come together to launch a coalition through which they will implement an EU-coordinated push to improve research assessment.
The Coalition for Research Assessment Reform launched on 1 December with 344 members, the largest group of which is universities and their associations, followed by research centres and infrastructures, public and private funders, and learned academies and societies.
Coara has been created to help bring about the changes set out in the voluntary Agreement on Research Assessment Reform, which aims to recognise the diversity of research roles, base assessment “primarily on qualitative evaluation”, and abandon the “inappropriate” use of metrics.
Steering board appointed
At a meeting in Brussels the same day, a first assembly of the coalition agreed terms of governance and operations, and elected a steering board. The board will be chaired by Rianne Letschert (pictured), president of Maastricht University in the Netherlands and a former president of the Royal Netherlands Young Academy of Arts and Sciences.
“We need a better balance in how we recognise and reward academics,” Letschert said, adding that there was also “an urgent need for more diversity in career paths in academia”.
Karen Stroobants, an independent research consultant who was involved in drawing up the reform agreement, and Elizabeth Gadd, chair of the Research Evaluation Group of the International Network of Research Managers, were elected board vice-chairs.
Other board members include Lidia Borrell-Damián, secretary general of the Science Europe association of research funders and performers, and Paul Boyle, a vice-president of the European University Association and vice-chancellor of Swansea University. Science Europe and the EUA developed the reform agreement alongside Stroobants, under the coordination of the European Commission.
The European Science Foundation, a non-profit science promotion organisation, was appointed the Coara secretariat, having been the only organisation to apply. Science Europe, the EUA and the Commission previously acted as interim secretariat.
More members called for
During an event to launch the coalition in Brussels, EUA director of research and innovation Stephane Berghmans said there were 40 coalition members from Italy, 34 from France, 34 from Poland and a further 34 pan-European organisations. Ten members were based outside of Europe, he said, including one from Brazil.
But Berghmans said that some countries within and outside Europe were “missing” from the membership, and called for the new Coara board to ensure that more organisations sign up. “I want to send a message to Coara and to its steering board for the future. There are countries that are missing there in Europe and globally. There is a mission there for you to make sure that more come,” he said.
It was announced that the agreement itself now has more than 420 signatories.