CLACSO-FOLEC at DORA Initiatives meeting 

During the meeting of Discussion Group on National and International Initiatives de DORA On May 14, 2024, the group members discussed the changes in research policies that are taking place in their respective organizations. Laura Rovelli, coordinator of Latin American Forum on Science Assessment (FOLEC) of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), gave a presentation highlighting the importance of open infrastructures and evaluation systems in research, pointing out the challenges Latin America faces in accessing information from the US and Europe due to the privatization of research information.

Rovelli also stressed the importance of open research information having transparent evidence and inclusive data, values ​​supported by the Barcelona Declaration on Open Investigative InformationThis declaration was created in 2023 by a group of more than 25 experts in research information and promotes open research and the sustainability of infrastructures for open research information.

Based on a recent collective publication on the Leiden Madtrics blogShe explained why inclusion and diversity require multiple sources of information and argued in favor of:

• Increase the number of relevant documents, especially from underrepresented areas.
• Ensure the “metadata richness”, since a single source cannot support all research information.
• Preserve a variety of information sources, such as histories, languages, etc.

She also mentioned how responsible research evaluation and open science are interconnected and how strengthening one can help improve the other. She described FOLEC's support for establishing a decentralized and federated research information source, noting that data sources should include both regional/local and international repositories.

Other ongoing projects at CLACSO include the AGoRRA Project with RoRI UKRI and a new publication with UNESCO, Current debates and ongoing reforms in responsible research evaluation in Latin America and the Caribbean, which analyzes reforms in the responsible evaluation of research in the national evaluation systems of Latin American countries.

We also receive updates from other organizations, which are briefly summarized below:

• The INORMS Research Evaluation Group (INORMS REG) has recently created a forum event on responsible research evaluation and has been organizing community calls for the More Than Our Rank initiative.
• The University of Leeds highlighted that it has signed the Knowledge Equity Network, a declaration that promotes the collaborative exchange of knowledge globally, seeks to address urgent challenges and supports a culture of openness, diversity and inclusion within the higher education sector.
• The Recognition & Rewards organization held its culture barometer surveywhich yielded data on “the state of affairs regarding a different way of recognizing and rewarding academic work within institutions.” A report with the results will be published. They have also organized a Recognition & Rewards festival with workshops to be held in November 2024.
• Universities Norway is part of a CoARA working group which is conducting a survey on how academic careers are evaluated. They also highlighted NOR-CAM: “A set of tools for recognition and rewards in academic careers.”
• Metrics Project presented the principles of DORA to Ministry of Education (MEC) as part of their celebration of the 20 years of the evaluation system current, noting that they are providing consulting services to the Ministry to redesign the system. They also presented on DORA's values ​​in Fiocruz, the largest public network of biomedical institutions in Brazil.
• Regarding DORA, we have published a guidance document on research indicators, a Report on support for responsible evaluation practices in pre-financing processes or with a Report on monitoring the effectiveness of narrative CVs.

Suggested reading list:

• DORA Report: Improving pre-financing processes.
• DORA Report: Use of narrative CVs.
• Article: The call for openness, diversity and inclusion in the Barcelona Declaration.
• Document: Diamond Global Summit on Open Access.
• Article: Decentralized blockchain implementation of ARK Persistent Identifiers (dARK).
• Article: Defining social impact in EUR.
• Document: Career profiles for researchers at UMC Utrecht.
• Article: 3rd Helsinki Initiative Webinar.

The author of the original note is Casey Donahoe (Policy Associate at DORA).

Source: https://sfdora.org/2024/06/18/dora-initiatives-meeting-updates-from-clacso-folec/