Current assessment systems rely heavily on bibliometric indicators such as publication counts, co-authorship, and citation metrics, which do not reliably reflect research quality or scientific rigor.

Grant-awarding committees are dominated by men, but first-ever majority female cohort of academy fellows gives reason for hope.

Can Large Language Models (LLMs) support the process or validate expert evaluations? ChatGPT-4o mini scores correlated positively with expert scores in almost all 34 (field-based) Units of Assessment (UoAs).

The Spark grants scheme, run by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), anonymises applications. This has meant a more diverse range of winners, particularly younger scientists and those new to SNSF funding.

Major platforms such as the Web of Science, widely used to generate metrics and evaluate researchers, are proprietary. More than 30 research and funding organizations call for the community to commit to platforms that instead are free for all, more transparent about their methods, and without restrictions about how the data can be used.

The European Research Council (ERC) introduced a more inclusive application form for applicants this year to give researchers on all career pathways a fair chance to demonstrate their excellence.

The European Research Council is revamping its project evaluation process from 2024 in line with the EU-wide push for a less prescriptive approach to evaluating scientific impact.