Bias in research has many faces and many effects, as DORA shows, e.g., resource accumulation (Matthew effect) and overlooking evidence that contradicts assumptions (confirmation bias). | Graphic: A. Hatch, R. Schmidt

When researchers apply for a professorship or for research funding, two things count above all: they must have published extensively in prominent specialist journals (represented by the ‘Journal Impact Factor’); furthermore they must have received a lot of citations (as summed up by the ‘h-index’). This can make a selection process easier, but it has significant disadvantages: it leads to a one-sided focus on quantity, it prevents scholars from engaging with matters outside their research, and it puts a brake on achieving equality for women and minorities in science and scholarship.

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), made in 2012, is intended to change all this. As of October 2020, some 2,050 institutions had signed this declaration, 713 of them in the year 2019 alone. And on Twitter, the same year saw DORA double its followers to 6,000.

But some institutions are still not adhering to its criteria. In 2019 ETH Zurich advertised a postdoc position that required applicants to have published in journals with a high impact factor. After the Twitterati pointed out to ETH Zurich that it had actually signed DORA, the research group in question changed their advertisement and apologised.

Meanwhile, research funding organisations are putting on the pressure with new initiatives. The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has adjusted its requirements for the CVs of applicants. It now prefers a narrative structure, has ditched the impact factor, and has asked members of appointment panels to take a broader focus.

The Swiss National Science Foundation is taking a similar approach. When promoting career advancement, it is excluding the impact factor and aims to focus more on quality. Besides publications, other achievements should count too, such as communicating with the public, filing patents or making software. As of January 2021, the Wellcome Trust in Britain will be requiring the home institutions of researchers it supports to present a concrete plan of how to implement DORA.