The CERCA Institution has signed the Agreement for Advancing Research Assessment and has joined the CoARA international coalition as a member.

The Agreement proposes a common vision between the signatory organizations in order to promote changes in research assessment practices and maximize quality of research and impact towards society.

Based on ten commitments, the agreement proposes the recognition of the diversity of practices, activities and professional careers in the research activity; the implementation of qualitative indicators to avoid burden of metrics based on journals and publications; allocating sufficient budget to research assessment and reviewing and developing new evaluation criteria and processes.

Over all these proposals, the coalition has keen interest in raising awareness on the need of reforming evaluation systems and exchange practices and experiences among the commitments for mutual learning,

• Especialistes nacionals i internacionals s’ha reunit a Barcelona per debatre diferents experiències en la valoració no acadèmica de la recerca.

Today, the workshop “The culture of impact in research institutions and universities” was held in Barcelona, organized by the CERCA Institution, the Health Quality and Assessment Agency of Catalonia (AQuAS) and the ‘Associació Catalana d’Universitats Públiques (ACUP), with the aim of debating and presenting different national and international experiences on the non-academic assessment of research and its impact on society.

The first part of the workshop focused on global perspectives on research impact. It has had the participation of David Phipps, who leads research programs and their impacts at York University (Toronto, Canada), and Jane Millar, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath (United Kingdom), who presented her experience in assessing the social and non-academic impact of research.

The experiences carried out in Sweden and Norway through entities such as The Research Council of Norway and the Swedish Research Council have also been discussed.

The second part presented local experiences of institutions that have worked to build a culture of impact. Julie Bayley, from the Lincoln Impact Literacy Institute (LILI), has moderated a focus group with the participation of Anabel Sánchez, from Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), Rosina Malagrida, from the AIDS Research Institute (IrsiCaixa), Xavier Ariño, from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and Jordi Bosch, from the University of Barcelona (UB),

During the event, the need to promote a culture of impact that allows measuring and evaluating the results obtained by research and putting them at the service of society was highlighted. In this sense, the director of CERCA, Lluís Rovira, has announced that a glossary of terms is being worked on, in collaboration with the IEC.

The event brought together more than 150 attendees, including researchers, heads of research centres and universities, managers and other professionals related to the world of research and innovation and is the first of a series of related performances that will last completed this year.