Aprobados los criterios de evaluación de la próxima convocatoria 2024 del sexenio de investigación

The Plenary Session of the National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (CNEAI) has approved in the session held today, December 9, the criteria for the evaluation of research activity, which will be published in BOE by Resolution of the president of CNEAI and director of ANECA.

So that the entire university and research community can know the evaluation criteria without having to wait for their official publication, we are making public the text of Resolution 2024 sent to BOE, thus facilitating the preparation of applications in sufficient time.

This Resolution follows on from the one published in 2023 - after the public consultation carried out on an initial draft - when the principles and evaluation criteria for six-year research periods were updated with the fundamental objective of adjusting them to the Organic Law of the University System (LOSU) and of giving coherence to this program for the evaluation of research activity with the provisions of Royal Decree 678/2023, which regulates state accreditation for access to university teaching bodies (article 21.6).

Therefore, the expansion of the type of contributions that applicants can submit for evaluation is maintained, so that a greater diversity of research profiles and careers is recognized; the progress towards a more qualitative evaluation supported by a responsible use of quantitative indicators, which in the case of articles cannot be reduced to the impact factor of journals; the recognition of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, with the creation of a specific field of evaluation; or measures to continue making progress towards achieving effective equality, by including the possibility of submitting four contributions when situations of maternity or paternity leave, leave for the care of children, for the care of relatives, etc. are adequately justified.

By agreement of the CNEAI Plenary, and as already advanced in the 2023 Resolution, the references to the section on indicative minimums are eliminated, so that in all fields a positive evaluation can be achieved by submitting five contributions that meet the general evaluation criteria. The CNEAI Plenary has considered that maintaining these indicative minimums would be inconsistent with the principles that inspire the new evaluation system for research activity, as it makes direct or indirect reference to quantitative indicators of the media and not to the quality of the contributions.

To facilitate the work of applicants and evaluators and to provide greater transparency to the evaluation process, the ANECA management has also published today the scale to be applied in this call. This scale specifies the principles of the 2024 Resolution on evaluation criteria and will be the only one that can be applied by the fifteen Advisory Committees, thus avoiding the development of specific scales for each of the committees that may be far from the evaluation framework established by CNEAI.