Contextualising Research Assessment for Social Sciences and Humanities: Insights and Challenges from the GraspOS Project Pilot

Reform of research assessment is underway through several initiatives, notably (and most recently) the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). EU-funded projects are also looking at the impact of open science and how its values can be incorporated into research assessment processes. One such project is GraspOS (Grant ID: 101095129), which aims to support emerging policy reforms and pave the way towards an Open Science-aware Responsible Research Assessment (RRA) system. However, disciplines and thematic areas have significant differences and unique elements that need to be taken into account in assessment. This presentation examines the phenomenon in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH).

A fundamental aspect of GraspOS is the creation of pilots to drive the activities of the project. OPERAS is leading the efforts of the SSH pilot in the thematic area category, and this presentation will report on the progress of the pilot’s objectives.

Key aspects of the presentation include how OPERAS is contributing to the project as a technical partner and pilot leader for the SSH Thematic Pilot; the focus shifts to the activities of OPERAS to work with the community to gather feedback on the challenges of research assessment; and the preliminary results and feedback from the consultation exercise that the pilot conducted with the SSH community. Finally, it highlights how digital platforms (tools, services and data) can support and positively influence research assessment by providing opportunities to monitor outputs from an open science perspective.

The presentation concludes on what the next steps for the pilot will be, specifically on the nature of the pilot which is to address SSH issues on research assessment through the creation of assessment protocols.