Funding policies
In June 2014, the SNSF signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). The declaration consists of a set of recommendations with regard to the assessment of scientific output. It calls for scientific performance to be judged not on the basis of the impact factor of journals; instead a wide range of scientific output should be considered and evaluation criteria published. DORA was initiated by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) together with a group of editors and publishers in December 2012. More than 600 organisations have signed the declaration so far.
In order to integrate the DORA recommendations into its evaluation procedure, the SNSF defined a range of measures in February 2016. New guidelines will make it clearer which kinds of output (e.g. patents, prizes and science communication) will be considered in the category track record alongside publications. The forms and guidelines for evaluators will be published on the SNSF website.
When assessing peer-reviewed publications, experts need to consider their quality and scientific impact, but not the overall total or annual number of publications. The reputation of the journals in which the articles are published can serve as an indicator of quality. Impact can be inferred from article-based metrics, if this is beneficial in a specific research area. Journal-based metrics should not be considered, however.