NSERC, along with four Canadian research funding agencies, signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) in 2019. The other signatories are the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Genome Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). In a joint statement, the agencies reaffirmed their commitment to meaningful assessment of excellence in research funding.

DORA recognizes the need to improve the ways in which the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated, beyond the widely used journal impact factor. The declaration is comprised of a set of recommendations developed by a group of journal editors and publishers at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco in 2012. Over 3500 organizations and 23,000 individuals have signed DORA, including research funders, research institutions, publishers, metrics providers, and researchers.

DORA recognizes that scholarly outputs are not limited to published journal articles but can also include article preprints, datasets, software, protocols, well-trained researchers, societal outcomes and policy changes resulting from research.

DORA aims to advance practical and robust approaches to research assessment globally and across all scholarly disciplines. It draws attention to the problem of the overreliance on journal-based metrics in hiring, promotion, and funding decisions, and encourages a community-driven change.

A number of tri-agency initiatives and policies already support research excellence and align with the recommendations in DORA, including research data management practices, open access publishing, responsible conduct of research, ethical conduct of research involving humans; and the commitment to re-examine research excellence through the Tri-Agency Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Action Plan.

Several aspects of NSERC’s approach to research assessment currently reflect the DORA principles, such as application processes that encourage the inclusion of outputs broader than published journal articles and peer review processes that examine the quality of contributions. NSERC values continuous improvement in developing and implementing evaluation practices, as well as the exploration of additional ways to more meaningfully assess research quality and impact. The Guidelines on the assessment of contributions to research, training and mentoring promote the consideration of a greater variety of contributions to these three areas, as well as examples of quality and impact indicators that could be assessed. These guidelines support a more robust and holistic assessment of researchers’ work based on its own merits.

As a signatory to DORA, NSERC remains committed to excellence in research funding and to ensuring that a wide range of research results and outcomes are considered and valued as part of the assessment process.

Watch this video describing six steps to a more holistic approach to research evaluation produced by DORA and the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR). French translation by NSERC.

Do not hesitate to contact us with your questions at dora@nserc-crsng.gc.ca.