DORA

DORA
Name	DORA
Full name	San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment
Formation	2012
Founders	American Society for Cell Biology signatories
Type	Declaration
Headquarters	San Francisco
Region	International

DORA The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment is an international initiative launched in 2012 to improve how scholarly research and researchers are evaluated. It addresses practices tied to bibliometric indicators and seeks to influence institutions, funders, publishers, and researchers across diverse fields including life sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences. The Declaration frames a set of recommendations meant to shift assessment away from narrow metrics toward richer, context-sensitive evaluation.

Background and Purpose

DORA emerged during a meeting convened in San Francisco that included representatives from bodies such as the American Society for Cell Biology, publishers like Nature Publishing Group, and funders including the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health. The initiative responded to concerns about reliance on indices such as the Journal Impact Factor, and to practices at institutions like Harvard University and University College London where hiring and promotion decisions were perceived to hinge on venue-based metrics. The purpose was to propose reforms that would affect stakeholders including European Research Council, National Science Foundation, and professional societies such as the Royal Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Principles and Recommendations

DORA lays out principal recommendations directed at funders such as the European Commission Horizon initiatives and organizations like the Wellcome Trust. It urges assessment committees at universities including University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and Stanford University to avoid using journal-based metrics in decisions for appointments, promotion, and funding. The Declaration recommends evaluating research on its own merits, considering article-level metrics and qualitative indicators used by publishers such as PLOS and eLife, and encouraging narrative-based assessment practices modeled by programs at Max Planck Society and Carnegie Mellon University. It endorses transparency from journals like Science and Cell Press regarding editorial processes and advocates that funders like the Gates Foundation support responsible assessment policies.

Impact on Research Assessment Practices

Since its publication, DORA influenced policy changes at institutions such as University of Glasgow, University of Amsterdam, and national agencies including the Dutch Research Council and the Australian Research Council. Publishers and platforms including Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and PubMed Central adjusted disclosures and promoted article-level metrics. Research funders like the European Research Council and foundations such as the Wellcome Trust incorporated elements of the Declaration into grant review guidance, and consortia such as the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment emerged to operationalize reforms alongside organizations like ORCID and CrossRef. DORA also catalyzed conversations at policy forums including meetings at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and sessions at conferences such as the World Conference on Research Integrity.

Adoption and Implementations

Adoption spans universities, funders, publishers, and professional societies. Examples include institutional policy statements by University of Edinburgh and funder guidance from Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Publishers including PLOS and eLife implemented article-level metrics and badges; repositories such as arXiv and bioRxiv influenced preprint recognition. Implementation tools and frameworks were developed by organizations like the Wellcome Trust’s research culture initiatives and the League of European Research Universities’s working groups. National-scale adoption occurred in policy ecosystems of Finland and Belgium, while sectoral uptake included mandates by learned societies such as the American Chemical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Criticisms and Controversies

Critiques of the Declaration and its uptake include concerns raised by stakeholders at journals such as The Lancet and commentators in outlets like Nature about feasibility and unintended consequences. Some critics argue that alternatives to the Journal Impact Factor can introduce their own biases, citing cases involving metrics from Scopus and Web of Science that may disadvantage scholars from regions represented by Global South institutions. Debates have surfaced around workload implications for review panels at institutions like Princeton University and questions about gaming new indicators, with analysts referencing experiences at Elsevier and issues identified by the Committee on Publication Ethics. Others note uneven adoption across disciplines including humanities units at University of Toronto and engineering departments at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Related Policies and Initiatives

DORA interacts with a landscape of complementary efforts including the Leiden Manifesto, the COARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment), and the Hong Kong Principles for assesssing researchers. It aligns with infrastructure and identifier work by ORCID and CrossRef, and with open science movements represented by Plan S, OpenAIRE, and repositories such as Zenodo. National and international policy frameworks including recommendations from the European Commission and guidance from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reinforce principles compatible with the Declaration, while funder-driven reforms by Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation advance practical implementation.

Category:Research assessment policies