By Prof. Lisa DeBruine, Academic Lead for Good Research Practice.
At the University of Glasgow, we believe research assessment should reflect the quality and integrity of scholarship, not just the numbers attached to it. That’s why we’ve committed to the principles of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). But signing our DORA commitment alone isn’t enough—it takes action, reflection, and collaboration to ensure the recommendations are more than aspirational notions, and that they are actually reflected in the way we do things. Enter the DORA Working Group, which I have the privilege of chairing.
The Mission of the working group: Taking Responsible Research Assessment from possible to easy.
In line with other streams of work in recent years at Glasgow, we are looking to make sure that following the principles of DORA is the path of least resistance, by looking for ways to tweak messages, forms, processes and what counts as ‘standard practice’.
To do this, we need to assess how well we are currently doing and what challenges we face. The first phase of the DORA Working Group aims to ensure research assessment practices across the university align not only with DORA, but with our wider Research Culture Priorities, while connecting our efforts to what’s happening the national and international landscape around research assessment. Here’s what we’re focusing on:
- Assessing Our Progress: We’re determining how well we’re meeting our DORA commitments and where we fall short. This assessment will inform a new institutional DORA Action Plan to guide our improvements.
- Refreshing Responsible Metrics: The University’s Statement on Responsible Use of Metrics has been refreshed for 2024, ensuring it remains a robust top level guide for responsible research assessment, and a clear signal of the University of Glasgow’s position.
- National Connections: We’re linking Glasgow’s efforts with UK-level initiatives, such as the UK Reproducibility Network’s project on Open and Responsible Researcher Reward and Recognition.
- Knowledge Sharing: Findings from the group will inform other university projects and initiatives, fostering a cohesive approach to responsible research practices. This is why it’s important that the working group report to Glasgow’s Lab for Academic Culture, which brings together people from across the university to work in partnership on large scale challenges such as this.
The DORA Action Plan: Turning Principles into Practice
A centrepiece of our efforts is a clear and specific DORA Action Plan, designed to operationalize the declaration’s principles. We’re setting priorities for action and defining specific actions for all those responsible. These cluster into:
- Promotion and Recruitment Decisions: We’re prioritizing explicit guidance that emphasizes the quality of research over reliance on flawed measures such as journal metrics.
- Training and Resources: From Unconscious Bias training to Narrative CV resources and workshops, we’re equipping our community to think imaginatively about how to ‘DORA-ify’ their work, challenge inappropriate assessment practices and adopt fairer ones.
- Broad Recognition: By valuing diverse outputs—such as datasets, software, and policy contributions—we’re working to ensure how we acknowledge, talk about and celebrate successes that reflect the full breadth of research impact, as part of our everyday university lives.
Our view is that for this to have the impact we want to see, it’s important that action is tied to clear goals, owned and overseen by the right people such as working in partnership with our People and OD colleagues on the working group, to embed responsible metrics into hiring guidance or auditing the types of research outputs recognized in promotions.
Building a Culture of Change
This work isn’t just about compliance; it’s about culture. Changing how we evaluate research means changing how we value it—and that requires everyone’s involvement. Our Culture is created by each of the everyday choices we make and the way we behave towards each other, within our research institutions and in our global research fields, interpersonally, or through the research discoveries and outputs we produce. We’re laying the groundwork for a fairer, more inclusive system that aligns with our priorities and strengthens research at Glasgow. A good research culture drives high engagement, trust, productivity, sustainability, wellbeing and ultimately great research.
The Auditorium: a research culture and researcher development blog 