Self-Assessment Report Released

Alliance4Life members have begun their transformation. Progress is already visible. 

The Alliance4Life published a new comprehensive self-assessment study of the current research and innovation performance of its members. The report clearly shows achieved progress in the implementation of research management strategies at several member institutes. The document offers a comparison of data collected in 2015-2017 with the new benchmark results collected three years later in 2018-2020, during the ongoing A4L_ACTIONS project. The results are indicating that the member institutes have already begun their transformation and progress is already visible. The Self-Assessment Report, which was coordinated by Prof. Silvia Pastoreková, Director of the Biomedical Centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, can serve as an inspiration to all institutes in low performing countries that are striving to improve their institutional management practices and research culture. 

Large-scale ESIF investments into the life science infrastructure alone could not close the R&I gap in Europe so far, financial support needs to be complemented by measures on research and innovation strategy at institutional and national levels. Alliance4Life members believe that improving governance and managerial practices as well as transforming institutional culture will enhance efficiency and increase return on investment. The recently released self-assessment report serves as proof that the Alliance4Life members are on the right path towards the desired transformation.

This comprehensive self-assessment exercise covers several dimensions of research activities. The report includes SWOT analysis providing a snapshot of internal and external conditions but examines also research culture across various institutes, managerial practices, resources as well as responsible metrics evaluated in the context of a quantitative benchmarking study. For the first time in Central and Eastern Europe, the assessment included also a survey of perception of internal research culture, inspired by the Wellcome survey on research culture published in 2019 and 2020. 

The results clearly show that the best-performing partners in terms of research outputs work in the environment of relatively well-functioning national systems, well-implemented practices of institutional management and well-developed internal research culture.

The analysis also demonstrates that most of the A4L_ACTIONS partners are aware of the challenges of building an institutional environment that enables excellent research and they are ready to roll up their sleeves. Despite objective barriers and threats, all A4L_ACTIONS partners can demonstrate very good research achievements that reflect their endeavours and deep interest in improvement. This is particularly visible when comparing the outputs of the period of 2018-2020 with the outputs of the preceding period of 2015-2017.

One of the key objectives of Alliance4Life is to embed international scientific evaluation as a strategic management tool in health research institutions of Central and Eastern Europe. The self-assessment report will be therefore complemented with peer review evaluations to be performed during fall 2022 at several Alliance4Life member institutions. Alliance4Life also joined the initiative of reforming the research evaluation system in the EU called the “coalition of willing” and shows its commitment to standing at the forefront of the positive change.