Research Assessment at the University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg is one of the most renowned comprehensive universities in Germany. Due to our broad variety of disciplines and research cultures, we are aware about the well-established practices of research assessment within different scientific contexts. However, we strive to safeguard quality by developing adequate, fair and transparent conditions for research assessment on an institutional level on the long run.
An Institutional Guideline for Research Assessment
As an important milestone, we will develop an institutional Guideline of Research Assessment until beginning of 2028. It addresses all UFR-members who evaluate researchers and research outputs or are evaluated themselves, including all career stages of researchers R1, R2, R3, R4. Its purpose is to display options and best practices for research assessment and to serve as a blueprint that can be adapted with regards to the goal (Why do we assess? What or who do we assess?) and with regards to the context (Recruitment processes? Peer-review?) it is applied in.
The CoARA-Action Plan of the University of Freiburg
We are convinced that it takes a shift towards practices including qualitative methods to adequately assess researchers and research projects. To achieve this, the UFR became a member of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) in May 2025.
By that, we have committed to the following core values, fostering a more holistic approach:
- Recognise the diversity of contributions to, and careers in, research in accordance with the needs and nature of the research.
- Base research assessment primarily on qualitative evaluation, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators.
- Abandon inappropriate uses in research assessment of journal- and publication-based metrics.
- Avoid the use of rankings of research organisations in research assessment.
Based on these principles, we adopted a CoARA-Action Plan of Research Assessment in May 2026 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20053787). The Action Plan constitutes an institutional commitment and a conceptual framework for critically reflecting and, where necessary, reforming evaluation practices. As a first step, we will tackle the following fields of action: Reviewing Assessment criteria in the context of Appointment procedures; Tenure-Track and Juniorprofessor-Evaluations; Criteria and processes of recruiting ECRs and evaluating their academic qualification in the context of Doctoral Degree Regulations and regulations for Habilitation.