National Recommendation for the responsible evaluation of a researcher

National Recommendation

• Good practice in researcher evaluation. Recommendation for the responsible evaluation of a researcher in Finland.

The general principles of researcher evaluation are transparency, integrity, equity, competence and diversity. They shall apply to the good practices defined in the Recommendation concerning the following aspects of the evaluation process:

• Building the evaluation process
• Evaluation of research
• Diversity of activities
• Researcher’s role in the evaluation process

The first aspect of the recommendation concerns good practices in building the evaluation process. Care must be taken to ensure that the objectives and criteria of the evaluation are transparently available to all parties involved. The materials used in the evaluation must be both collected and used appropriately and comprehensively. The evaluators must be free of conflict of interest and the pool of evaluators must be diverse. Equality must be ensured in the selection of criteria, datasets and evaluators.

The second aspect of the recommendations on good practice focuses on the evaluation of research, which takes into account scientific quality, open access and research integrity. The scientific quality of research can be assessed by studying both its contents and using research metrics as an aid for the qualitative evaluation. The recommendation includes a nine specific recommendations for the responsible use of publication metrics.

The third aspect of the recommendations deals with the diversity of the researcher's activities. Teaching and tutoring is seen as an essential part of the researcher's work and must be appropriately emphasised in the evaluation. The evaluation takes also into account societal interaction and impact, as well as the researcher's activities in research and other environments. Since researcher activities are implemented differently in different research fields, their indicators must be defined in each evaluation context to take into account the specific characteristics of the fields of research.

The fourth aspect of the recommendations invites the researcher into the assessment process. In responsible evaluation, the researcher must be allowed to provide context and explanation of the objectives, significance and effectiveness of his/her research. It would be a good idea to plan the evaluation in such a way that the evaluated researchers also benefits from being evaluated.

Implementation Plan

Tasks for implementing the recommendation are included. The Steering Group for Responsible Assessment of The Researcher is responsible for the implementation of these:

1. Developing an organisational measure for capability and maturity in evaluation.
2. Each research organisation and funder committed to the recommendation creates its own guidelines for implementing the recommendations for the responsible evaluation of a researcher and monitors their implementation.
3. A researcher portfolio model (e.g. Acumen ) and a portfolio portal compatible with the TENK curriculum vitae model will be developed and implemented nationally.
4. At national level, a sufficiently diverse research knowledge base will be developed to support evaluation.
5. Adequate guidance and instruction on responsible evaluation is provided at national and organisational levels.
6. Recognition of evaluation carried out by experts and the resources required are guaranteed in all evaluation work.
7. The Recommendation for the responsible evaluation of a researcher is updated and its implementation monitored.

The Academy of Finland and Universities Finland  UNIFI are adopted the recommendation.

The activities of organisations to promote responsible assessment are taken into account as part of the Monitoring for Open Science and Research. The objectives and measures related to responsible assessment are defined in the Policy for Open Scholarship and in the Self-Assessment Tool for Open Operating Culture Services. 

The development of the Researcher's Information package in the www.research.fi service also supports responsible researcher evaluation.

Steering Group

The steering group is to assess the need to update the national recommendation and to monitor and promote the implementation of the action plan. The steering group has been appointed for the period 2025-2028 and will meet three times per year.

Steering group members:

Ohjausryhmän kokousmuistio: Jatkuva muistio (Google Docs)