The SNSF signs the DORA declaration
In June, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) was officially signed by the SNSF on the DORA website. The declaration consists of a set of recommendations to improve the assessment of scientific output.
The declaration was initiated by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) together with a group of editors and publishers of scholarly journals in December 2012. The original signatories include over 150 internationally renowned editors and publishers, as well as over 80 organisations. The declaration recommends that evaluators refrain from using journal-based metrics as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research. It specifically asks them…
- to be explicit about the criteria used in evaluating the scientific productivity of grant applicants;
- to clearly state, especially for early-stage investigators, that the scientific content of a paper is much more important than publication metrics or the name of the journal in which it was published;
- to consider the values and impacts from all research outputs
The SNSF is fully aware that journal metrics cannot be eliminated entirely from the evaluation procedure. However, it is confident of achieving a high degree of compliance with the general principles expressed in DORA when assessing proposals.