Towards reforming the research assessment system in Italy

ANVUR signed the Agreement on Research Assessment Reform

The agreement is an important step towards the reform of the evaluation of research activities, to be achieved through a common and internationally shared path. The decision, taken by ANVUR's Governing Council at its meeting on 3 October last, represents a starting point for the activities that the Agency will have to develop to better recognise the different practices and activities underlying research quality and for the abandonment of inappropriate uses of metrics.

The main commitments are:

1. recognise the diversity of research contributions and careers according to the needs and nature of the research;
2. base research evaluation primarily on qualitative evaluation for which peer review is central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators;
3. abandon inappropriate uses in research evaluation of metrics based on journals and publications, in particular, the inappropriate use of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and h-index;
4. avoid the use of rankings of research organisations in research evaluation.

For more information on the agreement see the Open Science Café 'Reforming research assessment: where are we?' with Francesca di Donato (CNR) last March and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment website https://coara.eu/