By Steven Inchcoombe, President, Research at Springer Nature

The research landscape is undergoing a profound and rapid transformation. As we champion trust and integrity, open access and open science, and greater inclusivity and equity, the ways in which research is conducted and shared are evolving. Researchers are increasingly encouraged to engage with diverse audiences, share their research data, and collaborate across disciplines. This shift challenges the academic community to rethink how researchers, and their work, should be evaluated.  

As a signatory of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), Springer Nature has long advocated for a balanced approach to research assessment. We recognise that traditional metrics^*, while historically significant and useful within specific remits, can’t capture the full spectrum of a researcher’s contributions. Researchers are also evaluated for many different reasons, with unique needs and methodologies. In response, we are actively adapting our practices to better support the needs of researchers, institutions and funding bodies as they evolve their assessment practices. 

This white paper represents a step towards achieving this goal. Drawing on the voices of over 6,600 researchers across diverse regions, career stages and disciplines, it is one of the largest surveys of its kind – and provides a lens through which we can understand the state of research assessment and the varied experiences, perceptions and wishes of researchers navigating this environment.   

Many of our learnings gave weight to discussions we had already had with our partners: that many activities researchers undertake are not appropriately considered within evaluation practices, and there is hope for greater representation of other contributions beyond research output. 

However, we also uncovered some unexpected findings. On the one hand, researchers were perhaps more positive than we’d expected about the ways they are evaluated. On the other, we identified some tensions, including discrepancies between researchers' perceptions of the assessment process and established best practices, as well as conflicting opinions regarding qualitative versus quantitative indicators.  

By bringing together these views, we hope to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on research assessment and inform collective efforts to address challenges. We welcome our partners to engage in discussion with us about this important topic, and to collaborate with us to work towards a more equitable research assessment future.

^*By traditional metrics, we are referring to quantitative indicators that have historically been used to measure the academic quality and impact of a researcher's outputs. This includes a researcher's individual metrics such as number of publications, citation count and h-index, and journal-level metrics such as ranking and impact factor.  

Steven Inchcoombe
President, Research
Springer Nature