Research assessment: Bridging the gap

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment continues to fight for fairness

Publishing in a prestigious journal can make or break academic careers. But while a paper in a well-regarded journal can bring huge rewards for a researcher, the ‘impact factor’ widely used to judge publication quality is merely an average of the number of citations for a journal’s papers. A high impact factor could be the result of a single paper becoming a landmark for its field that gets cited over and over again. Another paper in the same journal can bring reflected glory to a researcher, even if it is cited barely ever or never at all.

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, known as Dora, was created to help bring an end to these vagaries. Since it was created in 2012 at a meeting in the city that gives it its name, more than 2,250 organisations—including universities, funders and publishers—have signed, pledging to do their part to improve how researchers and their outputs are evaluated.