Working Group:
Early-and-mid-Career Researchers (EMCRs) – Assessment andResearch Culture
Contacts (Chairs):
Sebastian Dahle sebastian.dahle@eurodoc.net;
Emma Day Emma.Day@vitae.ac.uk
Reda Cimmperman reda.cimmperman@lmt.lt
Email group: coara-emcr-wg@eurodoc.net

Introduction
EMCRs working in different types of environments, including universities, research institutes or theprivate sector, are subject to precarity and hypercompetition, and are most strongly affected byresearch culture and by assessment practices. These assessments happen at a variety of occasions
and for different purposes, including hiring and promotion, yearly cadre reviews and successevaluations, project applications, habilitation, defending a disposition or a doctorate, etc.
Moreover, EMCRs particularly in earlier career stages face an uncertainty about the academicsystem, as there is little coaching and training on the existing requirements, an ongoing changethat is hard to know what to expect and what will be expected, misaligned requirements byfunders, universities etc. - and in some cases EMCRs encounter even hard contradictions between
expectations from the outside world (e.g. regarding diverse outputs, new career pathways, openscience practices) and what their culture realistically looks like (e.g. through departmental reward
structures, lacking infrastructure and budget, or demands by the superior). 1 These pre-existing
challenges may further become exacerbated through a change of the assessment practices, whichneeds to be voided and correspondingly represented by a shift in the basic academic research
culture.

Objectives
Objective 1: Gather information and exchange experiences, collect good and best practices - andbad practices to avoid - from a range of different countries and organisations with different levelsof implementation of the reform of research assessment and diverse types of institutions as well
as different institutional autonomy levels about the impacts of different assessment
procedures/methods on EMCRs career paths and the cultures of research systems they are activein.
Objective 2: Develop pilot actions to:(i) monitor the outcomes and impacts,(ii) support EMCRs during the change through training and consultation,

1

See also: https://eurodoc.net/news/2018/press-release-eurodoc-paper-on-junior-researchers

(iii) instruct assessors of careers towards novel research assessment practices, and(iv) implement an inclusive and positive culture (change)
Objective 3: Based on the gathered insights, develop guidelines, models and a toolbox forimplementation, which will include monitoring templates, training recommendations, guidelines
for EMCR assessment, and methodologies to drive an inclusive research culture change.

List of affiliated organisations
Adoc TM
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR)
Complutense University of Madrid
DFG
Dutch Assistant Professors NetworkEMBO
ENRESSHEU-LIFEEUA Council for Doctoral Education (EUA-CDE)
European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (Eurodoc)
Federation of Finish Learnt Societies (TSV)
Global Young Academy
HuMetricsHSS Initiaitive
ICoRSA
Independent Research Fund Denmark
Initiative for Science in Europe
InOSiUA
Luxembourg National Research FundMCAA
NGO Innovative University
NOVA University Lisbon
Polish Rectors' Foundation
Research Council of Lithuania
SGH Warsaw School of Economics
UMC Groningen2

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
University of Maribor
University of Rijeka
VitaeYoung Academy of Europe3