Article

AQU Catalunya approves the 2025-2029 CoARA Action Plan

Josep Manel Torres Solà, technical advisor of AQU Catalunya

The document details the actions that AQU Catalunya will carry out over the coming years in order to fulfil the commitments entered into with the CoARA.

In July, the AQU Catalunya Governing Board approved the 2025-2029 CoARA Action Plan, which specifies the actions that will be carried out in order to fulfil the commitments that the Agency entered into with the CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) when it joined in 2022.

The CoARA is a collective of organisations committed to reforming the methods and processes by which research, researchers and research organisations are evaluated. Current research assessment methods rely heavily on publication-based metrics such as citation counts, and often fail to recognise the wide array of contributions made by researchers.

Over 700 research organisations, funders, assessment authorities and professional societies form part of the CoARA and have committed to implementing, within their organisations, the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment published in July 2022, through the execution of a five-year action plan.

Current research assessment methods rely heavily on publication-based metrics such as citation counts, and often fail to recognise the wide array of contributions made by researchers

The Agency’s Action Plan consists of nine strategic areas, which give rise to 23 actions that involve the entire organisation. It also provides for the future deployment of new action areas that fall within the scope of AQU Catalunya’s competences. These strategic areas are grouped into three blocks: actions related to the assessment of individual research activity; the assessment of research at the institutional level; and the actions that AQU Catalunya needs to carry out in order to promote change in the assessment process.

With regard to individual research activity, highlights include the reform of the assessment criteria for accrediting university teaching staff applied by the Research Assessment Commission (CAR) and the adaptation of the CVs of the teaching staff in line with the new assessment criteria.
From the institutional perspective, of particular importance is the future development of the criteria and procedure for assessing excellence in the research being carried out in the departments, institutes and affiliated centres of Catalan universities.
With specific regard to AQU Catalunya, the Plan includes actions designed to reduce the bureaucratic burden of assessment processes and to train experts and AQU Catalunya’s own staff in research assessment reform. This block also includes leadership actions on the part of AQU Catalunya designed to promote these changes within the Catalan Higher Education System. Lastly, this block also includes actions to promote and incentivise open science in research assessment.

The Action Plan will be presented to the AQU Catalunya Governing Board and sent to the CoARA for publication, and its implementation will be monitored on an annual basis. Additionally, over the coming days AQU Catalunya will add a new section to its website dedicated to the CoARA, which will make it possible to follow the actions that are carried out to reform research assessment and monitor the extent to which the commitments entered into with the CoARA are fulfilled.

The document can be viewed on the website of AQU Catalunya and on Zenodo.