The Foundation for Polish Science?s Executive Board and Advisory Board have decided to sign the so-called San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment ? DORA.
The San Francisco Declaration was developed on 16 December 2012 at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). The main premise of the declaration is that research work should be assessed above all on the basis of its own merits, rather than quantitative criteria. It should be the originality of a researcher?s scientific achievements and their influence on the scientific field, rather than bibliometric parameters such as the Impact Factor, that are taken into account in assessing him or her for the purposes of promotion or application for research funds.
As signatories of the Declaration, the FNP?s Executive Board and Advisory Board, wrote in their statement, ?the FNP authorities have decided to sign the San Francisco declaration, as they feel that for several years an alarming tendency has been developing in the scientific community to reduce the quality of the research of an individual scholar to assessment of the journal in which the achievements were published?. As an institution awarding funds for conducting research, the Foundation for Polish Science follows the principle of assessing the originality of the applicants? individual scientific accomplishments.
The San Francisco Declaration has been signed by 78 organisations, including the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS), EMBO, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Wellcome Trust; numerous scientific journals, such as Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and Public Library of Science (PLOS); and European and American scientific associations. Individual declarations have been signed by several hundred scientists, including many Nobel laureates and editors of scientific journals such as Science.
The Declaration in full: http://am.ascb.org/dora/