The Recognition and Rewards (R&R) programme has been active in higher education institutes in the Netherlands since 2020 to reform academic assessment, and to appreciate diverse talents and contributions to academia.
The programme was introduced as the Dutch answer to a global movement which urges reform to academic assessment practices. Despite challenges, many steps have already been taken at EUR, as well as other Dutch universities to create a healthier assessment system and to recognize and reward a broader range of academic activities. This includes designing and implementing diverse career paths and normalising narrative-based assessment.
In this blog, we situate the progress that EUR has made on academic assessment reform alongside developments internationally and make the case that as an institution we are at the crest of a global wave of change. This position allows us to both be an example for others and be one step ahead when shaping an attractive workplace for academic talent.
Updating the system
The academic assessment reform movement critiques an imbalanced focus on research output, where a culture of ‘publish or perish’ rules, and a research article in a high impact journal is the primary signifier of success. Not only does this conceal a range of valuable contributions that make the university successful – education, societal impact, and leadership, for example – it also hinges on a system of widely problematised metrics and rankings.
What’s not to like about updating an outdated system? Well, for some people quite a lot. Changing the ‘rules’ of academic careers is a delicate topic and reforms must be made with care. Many fear that the pace of reform in the Netherlands makes it an outlier in a global system of knowledge production, and therefore assessment, ultimately harming the competitiveness of academics and academic work based in the Netherlands, with possible repercussions on career mobility.
International movement
The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) was established in 2012 and signified a key international initiative calling for change in the way research is assessed and rewarded. Over 3500 institutions from around the world have signed the declaration to date. More recently, the Coalition on Advancing Research Assessment Reform (CoARA) has emerged to add fresh impetus to the research assessment movement, hosting a series of working groups, and amassing 900 institutional signatories in Europe. As one of these signatories, EUR published its own CoARA action plan in 2025 to map the course the university will take in changing research assessment. This puts EUR as one institution among over 220 others to lay out actionable steps forward.
The will for reform and the coalition of actors in support has a truly international character. The European Union has financially supported HORIZON projects on research assessment such as GraspOS and OPUS, which explore how to reform research assessment and begin to formally reward contributions to Open Science.
Reform taking shape in Europe
Efforts to reform academic assessment come from various angles and tackle different aspects on what is admittedly a broad and complex topic. The Netherlands and Norway are regularly highlighted as examples of national programmes that sit ahead of the international curve. In Norway, a special working group developed a tailored framework for a new approach to assessing academic work which is being deployed nationally.
Beyond the coordinated national programmes in Norway and the Netherlands, reform is high on the agenda throughout Europe and is shaping up elsewhere in a range of ways. Reform efforts in Spain have focused on a national law which judges promotion solely on research effort, measured in publications. While this 1994 legislation has succeeded in improving research production in the country, it has engrained a problematic ‘publish or perish culture’ at the detriment of education, societal impact, and research integrity. Elsewhere, the Swiss National Strategy in Open Research Data makes clear that open research data practices should be rewarded and incentivised during career assessment processes.
Reform taking shape in the US and UK
In North America, the American University, Washington DC, has recently updated its academic evaluation guidelines. The goal is to ensure that innovative research outputs and public facing scholarship could be valued properly during promotion, in a shift away from a reliance on traditional research metrics. Indications that assessment criteria are expanding from traditional focus areas are evident at a national level in the US. The National Science Foundation requires grant proposals to explain the broader impacts of research projects, in terms of engagement, partnerships, and societal well-being. Open Science advocates in the US are also emphasising the importance of a rewards system that incentivises open research behaviours, as evidenced with the HELIOS project.
These examples show that progress is being made to reform a system that is no longer fit for purpose. This year, a Cambridge University report surveyed 3000 persons involved in scientific publishing from 120 countries. Results show that 64% or respondents stated that research assessment is distorted by focusing on quantity not quality of research outputs. A recent UK Reproducibility Network Survey found that a growing number of institutions are beginning to reform research assessment but many need guidance and examples to begin making changes. This shows there are many more organisations eager to accelerate progress and implement reform.
Attractive careers & EUR strategy
To meet EUR’s mission of creating positive societal impact, an academic rewards system that compliments this aim is essential in meeting its full potential. The EUR 2030 strategy also prioritises empowering diverse talent which is a direct nod to the aims of R&R. And, by actively creating an institution with a progressive understanding of academic assessment, you build an environment that is attractive to employees, key for attracting and retaining talents that contribute to the entire spectrum of academic work. This was reiterated in the European University Associations recent report on Key Principles for Sustainable and Attractive Academic Careers.
The need to reform academic assessment is urgent and ongoing. The Netherlands has an opportunity to be an example on academic assessment reform, and EUR can be a trusted peer from which others can learn, strengthening the position of the university internationally. By taking a strong role in international momentum and developing solutions that fit our university’s goals, we have a unique opportunity to stand out as pioneers and credible role models on the world stage.
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