29 Jan 2026
CoARA urges integration of societal impact into core research assessment
The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) has published a white paper calling for societal impact to become a core criterion in how research is evaluated and funded, alongside academic excellence.
The paper, “Transformative Research Assessment: Integrating Societal Impacts into Evaluation Frameworks”, offers a pluralistic understanding of societal impact and presents a shared framework based on six guiding principles. It provides concrete, role-specific guidance for research funders, institutions and policymakers on how to better generate, assess and integrate societal impacts into existing systems.
More than 60 experts from over 30 European institutions contributed to the publication through CoARA’s Working Group Towards Transformation, ‘Societal Impact’ subgroup. This is the first white paper formally endorsed by the CoARA community and the first output featured in the CoARA collection resource library of practical reform tools.
The ‘Societal Impact’ subgroup is co-chaired by Professor Raimund Bleischwitz, Scientific Director of the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT), and Professor Teresa Sordé Martí of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. ZMT, representing the Leibniz Association, which serves as lead institution and funder for the subgroup.
Responding to global challenges such as climate change, social inequality and pandemics, the authors argue that evaluation practices must move beyond publication and citation metrics to recognise credible contributions to real-world change, while keeping reporting requirements proportionate.
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