Subproject: Incentive System in the Form of Funding and Recognition of Qualifications

Incentive System in the Form of Funding and Recognition of Qualifications

The assessment of quality in research has a long-standing tradition, with various forms of subject-internal peer review as a central element. This kind of quality assurance is still important, but with Linnaeus University’s current implementation of open science, this alone is not sufficient – rather, we must broaden our understanding of what is considered good research when recruiting new staff, promoting staff, and allocating funds.

For this reason, Linnaeus University has joined the international organisation Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), where assessment of quality and qualifications in research is the subject of change initiatives. CoARA has four main goals, which are also concrete commitments that member organisations pledge to implement and pursue:

• Recognise the diversity of contributions to, and careers in, research in accordance with the needs and nature of the research.
• Base research assessment primarily on qualitative evaluation for which peer review is central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators.
• Abandon inappropriate uses in research assessment of journal- and publication-based metrics, in particular inappropriate uses of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and h-index.
• Avoid the use of rankings of research organisations in research assessment.

Linnaeus University has also signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which aims to change the basis on which research is evaluated, for instance by not using journal-based metrics.

The main purpose of the subproject is to explore how different competencies and publishing channels can be incorporated into a comprehensive assessment of qualifications and an expanded concept of excellence. This will be achieved by establishing an incentive system that encourages open science. Specifically, it involves translating the principles of CoARA and DORA into practical applicability in, above all, recruitment and promotion processes.

The subproject’s efforts are focused around two defined subgoals:

• to develop an incentive system that promotes and values open science in qualification assessment and allocation of funds
• to explore what DORA and CoARA mean for Linnaeus University.

Get involved!

You are welcome to get involved in the work on open science. If you have questions about the subproject or would like to learn more about how you can get involved, please contact the subproject manager Joacim Hansson or the assistant project manager Mattias Gunnarsson.