Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA)

The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) is the international coalition responsible for preparing the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA) and implementing its principles. ARRA provides a common direction for reforming the evaluation practices of research, researchers and research institutions, with the overall aim of maximising their quality and impact.

The University of Bologna has been a member of CoARA since November 2022, along with more than 700 organisations including public and private funding bodies, universities, research centres, institutes and infrastructures, associations and alliances, national and regional authorities, accreditation and evaluation agencies, bringing a wide variety of views and perspectives.

From September 2023 to November 2025, the University of Bologna, together with the CNR, has been leading the Italian National Chapter of CoARA, which brings together 50 universities, research institutes and other organisations involved in research, with the aim of exchanging good practices and raising the national community's awareness of the methods and indicators to be adopted for an evaluation in line with the ARRA principles, with a view to mutual learning. The National Chapter also promotes discussion on the review and development of evaluation criteria, tools and processes for research organisations, researchers and projects that can be appropriately applied in the national context.

University Working Group on CoARA 

The University Working Group on CoARA (GLARA) was established on 15 May 2025 and will be active until 31 October 2027. 

Goals and activities 

The working group performs the following functions: 

• governance support for policy-making and strategic activities; 
• contribution to the implementation of the actions identified by the University’s governance bodies; 
• co-ordination with the administrative divisions involved and the University’s governance bodies; 
• gathering and sharing input from departments; 
• preparation of a second and more detailed version of the Action Plan; 
• overseeing the implementation of the Action Plan; 
• raising the academic community's awareness of CoARA principles. 

Composition 

The working group includes representatives of technical and administrative staff, ensuring the involvement of all relevant central administrative divisions and departmental representation, as well as teaching staff from the University’s main bodies responsible for research quality and assessment (i.e CVRA, GLOS, PQA) who can contribute their specific expertise and role. In relation to teaching staff, the composition ensures balanced representation across disciplinary areas, departments, and both bibliometric and non-bibliometric fields.

More specifically, the working group is composed as follows: 

• Coordinator: Prof. Francesca Masini, Delegate for Open Science, Data and Research Assessment 
• Teaching staff: Prof. Maria Laura Bolognesi, Prof. Stefania Bonfiglioli, Prof. Lorenzo Breschi, Prof. Guido Gottardi, Prof. Alessia Legnani Annichini, Prof. Caterina Mauri, Prof. Silvio Peroni, Prof. Maria Clelia Righi. 
• Technical and administrative staff: Valentina Airi, Elena Giachino, Rosa Peluso, Gianfranco Raffaeli, Daria Zizzola. 

Roadmap and Action Plan 

On 28 June 2024, following approval by the University bodies (Academic Senate meeting of 18/06/2024), the University of Bologna published the Action Plan to align its research assessment practices with CoARA principles. Among the main points are the promotion of Open Science and the enhancement of a broader range of research-related contributions, the importance of qualitative assessment, and the need to renew the tools, criteria and processes related to research assessment. 

The Action Plan comprises a more substantial section outlining the results of the internal review of all areas in which the University is already aligned with the CoARA principles, followed by a final section setting out the actions planned up to 2027, structured in two phases: an initial start-up phase and a second, more operational phase.  

Phase 1: 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025 

Action 1 

Creating a CoARA Working Group in charge of:

• gathering inputs from departments;
• preparing a second, more detailed version of the Action Plan;
• supervising the implementation of the plan;
• promote awareness of the reform within the academic community.

What we have done

Action 1 ended with the establishment of a Working Group on CoARA, which is now going to draw up a more detailed Action Plan and a strategy to connect it with the departments.

Action 2 

Contributing to the debate on key research issues central to the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment (ARRA), including transparency and reproducibility, interdisciplinarity and academic freedom, by organising three international events open to all. 

What we have done

The organisation of the three events titled Back to Fundamentals of Research was successfully completed. It involved the participation of the university and international academic community in a dialogue with the Italian Agency for the Assessment of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) and representatives of the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR). The three events produced three position papers on the three core themes: transparency and reproducibility, interdisciplinarity, academic freedom. 

Action 3 

Promoting Open Science practices and their monitoring, from research results (publications, research data, etc.) to learning activities, and improving their dissemination by developing a new communication strategy. 

What we have done

The University promotes open science through the activities of the GLOS - Working Group on Open Science, which works in synergy with the departmental Open Science Delegates and acts as a liaison with offices with responsibility for open access to publications and research data management.  

The university also promotes a series of meetings called Open Science Corner, which are dedicated to the entire academic community. The 2024 and 2025 editions included seminars on open science and research integrity. The seminars were recorded and are available on the University Intranet (Open Science Corner 2024 e Open Science Corner 2025).  

The university is also working on a new information and communication strategy for open science opportunities and services by revising the content of the university portal.   

Action 4 

Experimenting with a new system to monitor knowledge exchange and its impact on society. 

What we have done

The University uses IRIS-PE to monitor public engagement initiatives and assess their impact on society. Find out more about IRIS-PE on the University Intranet.  

Phase 2: 1 July 2025 to 31 December 2027 

Action 5 

Initiating training initiatives for young researchers (starting with PhDs) and newly recruited staff, with a focus on continuous improvement of research quality. 

What we have done

The university is organising two courses on open science for PhD students as part of the joint programme catalogue dedicated to transferable skills. TheUniversity also organised a series of training sessions in 2025 to present methods and practices of proper research data management, with examples from different disciplinary areas, according to principles and practices that fall under the umbrella of FAIR management and Open Science. Starting from 2026, another course focusing on research quality and assessment will be added. 

Action 6 

Promoting debate on the application of the CoARA principles to the following areas (taking into account national regulations and other factors that cannot currently be addressed): 

• guidelines for selection committees (e.g. promoting a more comprehensive assessment of candidates, differentiated by career stage); 
• criteria used in the VRA process (e.g. maximising qualitative criteria and avoiding a purely quantitative assessment); 
• criteria for salary progression (e.g. by including a more diverse range of activities that might be required or valued); 
• criteria used for the distribution of resources within departments (e.g. for the allocation of RFO-related funding or other types of funding).