Two French projects have been selected in the second call for proposals for the COARA funding programme
The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) promotes the comprehensive and qualitative peer assessment of individuals and groups. Last July, it announced the results of the second call for its funding programme. This initiative supports research organisations in implementing the commitments of the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and reforming research assessment practices at their establishments.
Twenty-eight projects were selected in three different categories:
- ‘Institutional Pilot Projects’ that test new evaluation models and approaches in targeted areas.
- ‘Teaming Projects‘ that facilitate the exchange of knowledge between organisations with different levels of expertise.
- ‘Institutional Change Projects‘ that propose a more in-depth reform of evaluation structures in line with COARA’s commitments.
Two of the 28 projects selected are led by two French universities:
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- LERAR – Laboratory of Engagement with Research Assessment Reform (Teaming Project)
This project is part of Aix-Marseille University and aims to promote CoARA’s principles while accelerating their adoption within the Europe’s Civic University Alliance (CIVIS). It also seeks to align French national assessment practices with European and international standards so that mobile researchers and the diversity of their output are fully recognised.
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- OSQuAR-UCA – Integrating Open Science into the Qualitative Research Assessment Reform at the University of Clermont Auvergne (Institutional Change Project)
This project aims to integrate open science practices into the qualitative assessment of research at all levels (individual, project and institutional) by mobilising the community, jointly developing open science criteria to promote fairness and transparency, and institutionalising these reforms through policies and training integrated into the European Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R) approach. The University of Clermont Auvergne is also part of this approach.
Find out more:
The 28 selected projects : https://zenodo.org/records/16410458
The French Chapter of CoARA : https://coara.fr/
The French version of the CoARA agreement : https://coara.fr/app/uploads/2025/08/COARA_traduction_accord.pdf
