South East Technological University is a signatory to the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) and is committed to supporting fair, transparent and responsible approaches to research evaluation. SETU has formally endorsed the CoARA Action Plan, which guides European higher education institutions in moving away from narrow, metric based assessment and towards more holistic and qualitative approaches.
SETU’s commitment reflects its strategic priority to value a broad range of research contributions, including interdisciplinary work, practice based outputs, collaboration with communities and industry, and contributions that support open research. The university recognises that a diverse research environment requires assessment processes that are inclusive, flexible and grounded in expert judgement.
Assessment processes focus on the substance of the research rather than the venue of publication or single metrics. Narrative descriptions, peer review and contextual statements have increased importance.
CoARA recommends that journal metrics such as JIF are not used to evaluate individuals or outputs. SETU’s research guidance aligns with this principle. The quality and relevance of the research are considered within disciplinary and methodological norms.
Books, datasets, software, policy engagement, creative work and community based research are recognised as valuable contributions. SETU encourages researchers to document these outputs clearly and include them in narrative CVs.
The CoARA Action Plan promotes the use of open research practices, including open access, data sharing and transparent reporting. SETU’s Research Support Services and Library provide guidance on responsible data practices, repository deposit and persistent identifiers such as ORCID.
CoARA encourages frameworks that account for career stage, disciplinary traditions and individual circumstances. SETU is developing assessment practices that value diverse research paths and support early career researchers.
SETU’s participation in CoARA includes regular assessment of policies, training and evaluation procedures. Researchers will begin to see changes in promotion criteria, grant evaluation processes and internal reporting as the action plan is embedded.
SETU’s CoARA commitment reinforces the core messages of responsible metric use:
Metrics support evaluation but do not replace expert review
Context is essential
Narrative explanations and qualitative assessment remain central
Transparency in how metrics are used is required
A broad range of contributions must be valued
Together, CoARA and responsible metrics form the foundation of SETU’s approach to research evaluation.
A link to the CoARA Action plan is below. It can also be accessed here
You can find out more about CoARA here