Why DORA’s Governance Is Changing | DORA

DORA challenges academic institutions, funding organizations, and scholarly societies to include a broader representation of researchers in the design of responsible research assessment policies and practices. We apply this same standard to our organization, and we want to do our utmost to address the long-standing structural inequalities that limit participation and success in academia.

Over the past 18 months, DORA has reviewed our operational structure to see how we can better live our values as an organization. While we have global aspirations to accelerate research assessment reform, our governance effectively limited participation in the Steering Committee to representatives from organizations in Europe and North America. Although our Advisory Board had representation from every continent and provided a global perspective, this dual committee structure did not embody the aspirations for equity that we wish to see incorporated into responsible research assessment. The DORA Steering Committee and Advisory Board therefore worked collaboratively—through multiple rounds of discussion, feedback and refinements—to develop a new governance set-up.  The work was informed by examples drawn from the wider scholarly communications community. We are particularly grateful to Invest in Open Infrastructure and Code for Science & Society for sharing their work on developing anti-racist governance.