13 May 2025
CoARA presents blueprint for open and connected research assessment
The CoARA Working Group 'Towards Open Infrastructures for Responsible Research Assessment' (OI4RRA) presented its blueprint for open and connected research assessment on 13 May 2025. Its blueprint is intended as a practical response to the fact that across the research landscape, institutions struggle with a fragmented ecosystem, operating in silos and using their own language and logicm, thus creating inefficiencies, obscuring valuable research contributions, complicating reporting, and eroding trust in evaluation outcomes. The Working Group has drawn up a four-tier Conceptual Architecture that charts a path from today’s scattered tools toward a coherent, open infrastructure. By focusing on persistent identifiers, interoperable platforms, enriched metadata, and transparent analytics, this framework aims to empower research-performing and research-funding organisations to build a more connected, trustworthy assessment ecosystem, CoARA states. The four tiers are the following:
- Tier 0 – Foundation: Establish Reliable Identifiers
- Tier 1 – Publishing Platforms: Ensure Accessible Records
- Tier 2 – Metadata Aggregators: Build the Knowledge Graph
- Tier 3 – Assessment Support: Turn Data into Insight
To support institutions in implementing this architecture, the report concludes with two targeted policy briefs, for research performing organisations and for research funding organisations, translating the four-tier model into clear, actionable steps for RPOs and RFOs.
For more information and to download the policy briefs: