In 2019, the five major national research funding agencies in Canada announced that they had signed on to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), an initiative which calls for more holistic practices for evaluating research outputs. These five organizations include the Tri-Agency Research Council members – the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) – as well as the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and Genome Canada.
In August 2023, CIHR reaffirmed their commitment to fulfilling DORA recommendations by updating their program guidance to applicants and peer reviewers. NSERC and SSHRC both also have statements discussing how becoming DORA signatories aligns with their current practices. They also stipulate how their funding mandates will change in response to DORA principles.
A few universities are included in the list of 50 Canadian signatories of DORA. Through these commitments, institutions such as the University of Calgary, Université de Montréal, and École de technologie supérieure are changing the way research impact is evaluated within their organizations. More information on the implementation of DORA in Canada is available on DORA’s website.
