On 4 June 2026, the CoARA Working Group "Towards Open Infrastructures for Responsible Research Assessment" (OI4RRA) brought its three endorsed outputs to the wider community, a connected set of tools to help research organisations move from closed, proprietary systems to open, community-governed infrastructure.

At the latest CoARA Spotlight, Natalia Manola and Angeliki Tzouganatou (OpenAIRE), on behalf of the OI4RRA Working Group, presented the three outputs the group has produced over its 24-month mandate, now endorsed and available in the CoARA Collection. The session set out why it matters for the research community trying to put responsible research assessment into practice through an infrastructural lens.

The starting point is a paradox the community knows well. Over two decades, public investment built a rich, interoperable commons for sharing research. Yet the decisions that shape careers and funding still run on closed databases that no institution can audit or govern. We fund open infrastructure to disseminate research, then use opaque systems to judge it. Closing that gap is the purpose of the OI4RRA Working Group, a community of 81 members across 43 organisations, co-chaired by Natalia Manola (OpenAIRE) and Clifford Tatum (CWTS).

Three outputs, one path

The three outputs are designed to work together, each answering a different question.

The first, Open Infrastructures for Responsible Research Assessment: Principles, Framework, and Checklist, sets the foundation: what an open infrastructure must be to be fit for responsible assessment. It defines the essential characteristics across four categories,

• Technical robustness
• Operational capacity
• Community-centred practices
• Ethical and inclusive practices

Drawing not on newly invented principles but on those the community already shares, from POSI to the Barcelona Declaration. Crucially, its December release added a practical checklist, translating the principles into self-assessment guidelines that research-performing and research-funding organisations can use as a shared yardstick for procurement, investment and reform decisions. The checklist was tested twice with the community, at the Open Science Fair 2025 and an online workshop in February 2026.

The second, the Conceptual Architecture for the Implementation of a Responsible Research Assessment Framework Built on Open Infrastructures, is the blueprint. It organises open infrastructures into a four-tier reference model spanning the research lifecycle, from persistent identifiers and standards, through publishing venues and metadata aggregators, to assessment support services, and shows how a single research contribution travels from deposition to decision. Its central message is that the tiers are interdependent: invest in one and neglect the others, and responsible assessment breaks down. Two action plans translate the model into concrete decisions for institutions and for funders.

The third output is Transitioning to Open Infrastructures for Responsible Research Assessment: Barriers, Enablers, and Strategic Recommendations. Where the first two describe what good looks like and how the pieces connect, this one asks the question that decides whether any of it happens: where do we actually stand, and what should we do next? Grounded in 13 interviews with 17 experts across 11 countries in Europe, Africa and the Asia-Pacific, it captures evidence from the front line of the transition. The pattern is consistent: leadership and innovation already exist, but most systems remain tied to proprietary databases and fragmented policies. Turning isolated successes into systemic change, the report argues, requires coordinated investment across six interdependent domains, human capital, human resources, financial capacities, policy alignment, career incentives, and inclusive ethical governance.

Why it matters for the community

Taken together, the outputs give organisations the principles, the structure, and the evidence to act, and to act now. They are practical rather than aspirational. Whatever your starting point, there is a way in: a checklist to test a system before you adopt it, a reference model to guide where you invest, and a roadmap drawn from organisations already making the move. They reflect a community-built consensus, tested in the open, and they meet research-performing and research-funding organisations where they are.

All three outputs are openly available in the CoARA Collection. We warmly thank every member of the OI4RRA Working Group whose collective work made them possible, and we invite the community to use them, build on them, and help shape what comes next.