CoARA Boost Project

CoARA Boost Project Coalition Governance Steering Board National Chapters Working Groups Guiding Principles Membership

A Catalyser in the Coalition's Ambitions

With effect from October 2023, the CoARA Boost project started rolling out. This is an EU funded project with a duration of three years and a volume of about 5 million € whereof more than half of it to be further distributed in cascaded funding. CoARA Boost manifests a catalyser in enhancing the operational capacity of CoARA. It is therefore decisive in the global growth of the reform dedicated community, the further amplification of collaboration and the enhancement of knowledge exchange and mutual learning across the coalition.

Expected Outcomes and Scope

Embedded within the operational structure of the coalition, the CoARA Boost project has a pivotal role in advancing CoARA’s mission in the worldwide reform of assessment of research, researchers, and research organisations with the intent to recognise diverse outputs, practices and activities that will maximise the overall quality and impact of research. The initiative provides critical means to bolster CoARA’s ramp-up and is opening new pathways for research assessment models and policies.

Main actions of the CoARA Boost project include:

Strengthening the operational support to the coalition, including the sharing of information and knowledge, awareness raising
Cascading grant mechanism to contribute to institutional changes to a significant number of organisations of different types and across geographical areas; at least 50 projects will be funded from a total budget of 2.75 million €
Contributing to the implementation of institutional changes for reforming research assessment, including supporting signatories in compiling and executing on their action plans towards the achievement of the agreed 10 commitments
Providing assistance to Working Groups in their exploration of new models of research assessment
Expanding the outreach of European efforts to reform research assessment by growing the membership of CoARA globally and enforcing international cooperation on evolutions in research assessment

Network of Partners

The European Science Foundation (ESF https://www.esf.org/) serves as the coordinator of the CoARA Boost initiative. ESF, along with a strong network of partners (listed in the table here below), are collaborating closely in advancing the coalition’s objectives and accomplishing the CoARA Boost project.

Overview of Work Packages:

WP No	Title	Lead	Focus
1	Project management and coordination	ESF	enabling CoARA Boost Grant Agreement execution administering the project consortium managing the project budget ensuring project quality control
2	Operations, membership support and governance	ESF	supporting the CoARA governing bodies and decision-making process supporting the operations of CoARA managing CoARA members and monitoring CoARA membership implementing the calls for Working Groups (WGs) securing additional resources for CoARA
3	Members’ mapping of practices (Action Plans)	CNRS	helping with CoARA members Action plans provide access to data and to analysis CoARA membership landscape define the best architecture to gather information and progress from CoARA members informing about the platform and its use (e.g. via webinars)
4	Support to Working Groups	MCAA YERUN	providing an operational framework for the implementation of CoARA Working Groups providing operational support to the WGs supporting the CoARA Co-Chairs Forum to ensure linking-up between WGs. provide a monitoring template to capture WG´s progress
5	Catalysing change: Cascade Funding programme	ESF	operate the Cascade Funding programme facilitating institutional change by providing access to direct funding through open competitive calls generating knowledge on research assessment
6	Expanding the reach and growing the membership of CoARA in Europe and beyond	ALLEA Science Europe	reinforcing CoARA in less represented European regions/countries expanding the CoARA membership globally developing synergies with related projects & initiatives providing targeted analysis, engagement, communication, & advocacy material to support the growth of CoARA
7	Communication and Outreach	ESF	raising awareness about the need to reform research assessment empowering CoARA members to efficiently communicate and disseminate their progress towards reform within their internal and external networks ensure a broad uptake and ownership of CoARA’s output and recommendations by policy-makers, RFOs, RPOs, and higher education institutions in the ERA and beyond

Find additional information in the Press Release: CoARA Boost Project to Accelerate the Coalition’s Operational Capacity, 8th Nov 2023

We are pleased that we are now equipped with the means to accelerate CoARA’s ambitions benefitting from this significant operational boost. The grant represents a recognition of the pressing need to change research assessment cultures globally towards more diverse, more equitable proxies that are well aligned with how high-quality research is done in present-day academia.

Erzsébet Toth Czifra

CoARA Programme Manager

The European Science Foundation is the selected partner in hosting the coalition’s secretariat, and therefore has the key role in coordinating the CoARA Boost project. We are very proud of the recognition ESF receives as a long-standing reliable partner in science and being entrusted with effectively running the operations of CoARA, together with this strong network of expert partners.

Nicolas Walter

European Science Foundation Chief Executive Officer