November 13,
2019 - Canada’s five major national
research funders are pleased to join research leaders around the
world who are working to strengthen research excellence by
ensuring robust, equitable and impactful measures of research
assessment. CFI, CIHR, Genome Canada, NSERC and
SSHRC have signed the "DORA
Agreement" - the San Francisco Declaration on
Research Assessment, reaffirming their commitment to
excellence in research evaluation and the importance of
knowledge translation and mobilization.
DORA is a global initiative to support the
development and promotion of best practice in assessment of
scholarly research. It aims to address the negative
consequences of unintended overuse of journal publication as a
primary indicator of quality for research output. To date,
1,557 organizations and 15,006 individuals are signatories to
DORA. These include funders, publishers, professional
societies, institutions and researchers [including yours truly, and other colleagues at
UAlberta].
The DORA agreement stipulates that the quality and impact of research cannot be
measured through journal publications alone.
The implications of the DORA principle extend
beyond funding agencies' policies connecting research
excellence to research data
management practices,
open access
publishing, the ethical conduct of
research, knowledge mobilization, and
the Tri-Agency
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Action Plan, to local
universities' processes for tenure and promotion.