Research(er) evaluation and assessment
Research(er) evaluation and assessment
The quality and integrity of research heavily depends on the behavior of individual researchers. Nevertheless, their behavior is strongly influenced by the way their academic work in general and their research in particular are evaluated and assessed. Evaluation systems can encourage researchers to act with integrity. For instance, if data sharing is part of the evaluation criteria, researchers are stimulated to deposit and share their research data.
Assessment systems, however, can also discourage researchers to adhere to good academic research practices, e.g. if the number of papers a researcher has published is part of the evaluation criteria, a researcher might be tempted to cut up the outcomes of a study in as many articles as possible (salami slicing).
In recent years initiatives – such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) (2012), the Leiden Manifesto (2015) – have influenced the debate about responsible research assessment (RRA) (Stephen Curry et al, 2020). These initiatives are triggering the research community to include a broader set of indicators in the assessment systems to lower the importance given to quantitative output oriented indicators, and to focus on the assessment of the quality of the research. The Hong Kong Principles for assessing researchers go one step further and explicitly link research assessment and research integrity. The principles were formulated during the 6th World Conference on Research Integrity in Hong Kong in 2019 and published in July 2020. They are designed to help research institutions to include considerations related to trustworthiness, rigor and transparency in the assessment of researchers for career advancement. Also within the Flemish universities, these principles can inspire and trigger discussions towards the further implementation of a responsible assessment in which behaviors that strenghten research integrity are recognised and rewarded.
The 5 Hong Kong Principles are:
- Assess responsible research practices from conception to delivery.
- Value the accurate and transparent reporting, regardless of the results.
- Value the practices of open science, such as open methods, materials and data.
- Value a diversity of types of research, such as replication, innovation, translation, synthesis and meta-research.
- Recognise essential other tasks like peer review for grants and publications, mentoring, outreach and knowledge exchange.
ALLEA Code:
- Researchers take seriously their commitment and responsibility to the research community through refereeing, reviewing, and assessment, and this work is recognised and rewarded by researchers, research institutions, and organisations.
- Researchers, research institutions, and organisations adopt assessment practices that are based on principles of quality, knowledge advancement, and impact that go beyond quantitative indictors and take into account diversity, inclusiveness, openness, and collaboration where relevant.
Nowadays, more and more research institutions and funders are opting for the inclusion of a structured narrative or bio sketch in their evaluation processes. In these narratives, researchers can communicate their most important research contributions and can include less visible efforts, for instance with regard to research integrity and open science.