The EU-funded ELIXIR-STEERS project has released its first policy brief, Strategies for Enhancing the Credit and Recognition of Research Artefacts, outlining recommendations to enhance the credit and recognition of non-traditional research artefacts within European research assessment systems. These artefacts, such as curated datasets, research software, workflows and training materials, are often overlooked in traditional evaluation frameworks and yet are key to modern, collaborative and reproducible science.
The policy brief proposes a coordinated approach that combines technical infrastructure solutions with policy reforms aligned with major EU initiatives, such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), to ensure all research outputs are formally credited. These actions will support improved research assessment, more sustainable career pathways and greater alignment with open science principles.
The key recommendations are:
- Advance the recognition of non-traditional research artefacts
Ensure that research assessment systems formally acknowledge a wider range of outputs (e.g. data, software, training materials) that are foundational to modern scientific research. - Strengthen and align existing infrastructures
Leverage and coordinate existing platforms and initiatives to enable scalable, interoperable and sustainable recognition practices across life science disciplines. - Enhance credit recognition in organisational frameworks
Institutions and funders should embed non-traditional research artefacts in internal evaluation, promotion and funding frameworks to support more equitable, transparent and accurate research assessment practices. - Establishing career paths for research digital professionals
Develop and embed institutional career structures to support professionals involved in producing and maintaining non-traditional research artefacts, ensuring long-term sustainability.
The full policy brief includes further details on each recommendation, as well as real-world examples from ELIXIR Communities that have successfully implemented credit and recognition strategies for research artefacts beyond publications.
The policy brief can be accessed on Zenodo.