The general principles of responsible researcher evaluation are transparency, integrity, fairness, competence, and diversity. We aim to comply with these principles in researcher evaluation – both in recruitment and in assessing career development. We will develop our operation and processes in accordance with the good practices of the national recomendation. Recommendation for responsible evaluation of a researcher is a part of the Declaration of Open Science and Research.
The general principles in the national recommendation for responsible evaluation of a researcher are the following:
Transparency
The objectives, methods, materials and interpretation of the results must be known to everyone
involved in the evaluation. The evaluation must be conducted in a manner that is understood by all parties
involved. The evaluation process and all its stages must be clearly and transparently described. The party responsible for the evaluation must ensure that the choices made in the evaluation work are properly reasoned and the evaluation documented in a reliable manner.
Integrity
Evaluation must be conducted in accordance with practices recognized by the research community,
such as integrity, diligence, and accuracy.
Fairness
All those subject to evaluation must be treated equally and impartially. Evaluation must take into account only relevant factors that have been brought to the attention of all parties concerned. Characteristics or circumstances associated with persons being evaluated or people close to them that are irrelevant to the objective of the evaluation must not be used as evaluation criteria.
Competence
Evaluators must have the necessary substantive competence and knowledge of the objectives and methods of the evaluation process and with the principles and practices of responsible evaluation of a researcher. In addition to their qualifications, evaluators must not have a conflict of interest and their collective expertise should be diverse.
Diversity
Evaluation must take into account the diversity of research and outputs.
The key content of the DORA declaration is to promote the primary importance of robust assessment of research quality.
The recommendations concern both research outputs (publications as well as, for example, research data and source code) and research impact. The scholarly merits of publications should always be the primary criterion in assessing them.
The other overarching theme of the declaration is that research outputs and impact should be assessed comprehensively. At a general level, all assessment processes must be open and the methods and criteria applied must be clear.
By signing the DORA declaration, the University of Helsinki wishes to demonstrate its commitment to the development of research assessment as well as to responsible metrics and the promotion of open science.
University of Helsinki has signed the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and joined as a member to the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment, CoARA on 2022.