CoARA National Chapter Italy
CoARA National Chapter Italy
National Chapter's Objectives
The main aims of the Italian National Chapter are to
- Enable mutual learning, share best practice, and raise awareness of best responsible assessment practices and indicators in the national community on the ongoing research assessment reform (CoARA commitments 7-8)
- Foster the discussion about the reviewing and development of assessment criteria, tools and processes for assessing research institutions, individual researchers and projects (CoARA commitment 6).
This outreach effort will support the implementation of the reform at the national level and will contribute to attract more institutions and stakeholders to sign the agreement.
The main activities are focused on:
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- Creating an active network among Italian institutions, promoting the alignment of the Institutional Roadmaps requested by CoARA, and engaging with the relevant political decision-making national body(ies)
- Establishing stable and bidirectional connections with the Working Groups, to explore the impact of their results on national practices and provide a feedback based on the experiences of the Italian communities on more specific topics
- Interacting and collaborating with the other NCs (direct contacts with the organisations proposing the Spanish, French and Polish NCs already exist)
Stay up to date and learn more
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Visit the Italian National Chapter Website
Events
Updated on 13 October 2026
Conference in Milan on connecting Open Science, research evaluation, and research integrity
On 28 October 2026, the CoARA NC Italy is organising a conference in Milan, with hosting support from INGV, University of Milano, and University of Torino. The conference aims to identify pathways between Open Science and research evaluation and their relationship to research integrity. The event will provide a platform to invite discussion, interactive sessions, and to imagine a future with transparent, robust, and reproducible science.
Resources
Presentation of the Italian National Chapter 2024
Presentation from the National Chapter Exchange Forum in 2024
Italian National Chapter Full Proposal
Outlines the aims, objectives, expected impacts, and mechanisms to engage a range of organisations
ARRA Italian Translation
Accordo sulla riforma della valutazione della ricerca
Italian National Chapter two years later
Per una nuova cultura della valutazione della ricerca: la riforma di CoARA in Italia
La CoARA è nata a dicembre 2022 per tradurre in pratica i principi e gli impegni stabiliti nell’ARRA
NC Italy Work Programme
Proposal for NC Italy's work programme 2025-2027
Report on Institutional Roadmaps Monitoring
This report provides an overview of the current state of Action Plans among Italian signatories.
CoARA Pills Webinar Series
Dedicated Zenodo community for CoARA Pills webinar series
Affiliated Organisations
- Agenzia nazionale di valutazione del sistema universitario e della ricerca – ANVUR (Marco Malgarini, Licia Romano)
- Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna (Alberto Credi, Francesca Masini)
- ARSI – Associazione Ricercatori in Sanità Italia (Valeria Elisa Contarino)
- Associazione italiana per la promozione della scienza aperta – AISA (Maria Chiara Pievatolo, Roberto Caso)
- Ca’ Foscari Università di Venezia (Marco Sgarbi, Tommaso Piazza)
- Center for Ethics in Science and Journalism (Fabio Turone, Daniela Ovadia)
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – CNR (Francesca Di Donato, Ginevra Peruginelli)
- GRIN Gruppo di informatica
- IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele (Roberto Buccione, Monica Fabbri)
- Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia – IIT (Ugo Moschini, Elisa Molinari)
- Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare – INFN (Nadia Pastrone)
- Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia – INGV (Alessandro Carosi)
- Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale – OGS (Nicola Casagli, Angela Saraò)
- Italian Reproducibility Network – ITRN (Carlo Miniussi, Davide Crepaldi)
- IULM (Emma Zavarrone, Giovanna Rocca)
- Museo Galileo (Marco Berni, Elena Fani)
- Politecnico di Bari (Giuseppe Pascazio, Antonella Palermo)
- Politecnico di Torino (Federica Cappelluti, Antonella Marino)
- Scuola IMT Lucca (Emanuele Pellegrini, Anna Smaniotto)
- Scuola Normale Superiore (Tommaso Pizzorusso, Donatella Tamagno)
- Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Caterina Sganga, Maria Teresa Nevigato)
- Tuscan Organisation of Universities and Research for Europe – TOUR4EU (Monica Barni, Simona Costa)
- Università “G. d’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara (Patrizia Ballerini, Antonella Fontana)
- Università Campus Biomedico di Roma (Leandro Pecchia)
- Università del Piemonte Orientale (Maria Napoli, Cristina Coloccini)
- Università del Salento (Andrea Ventura, Stefano Piraino)
- Università dell’Aquila (Maria Benedetta Mattei)
- Università dell’Insubria (Flavia Marinelli, Gabriella Margaria)
- Università della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli (Lucia Altucci)
- Università della Tuscia (Clara Cicatiello, Marco Barbini)
- Università di Bergamo (Davide Scotti, Mariafrancesca Sicilia)
- Università di Brescia (Alessandro Padovani)
- Università di Cagliari (Luciano Colombo, Cristina Aresu)
- Università di Camerino (Guido Favia, Anna Maria Eleuteri)
- Università di Cassino e del Lazio meridionale (Elena Garcea, Andrea Riggio)
- Università di Ferrara (Massimiliano Mazzanti, Monica Campana)
- Università di Firenze (Debora Berti, Denise Cuccia)
- Università di Foggia
- Università di Macerata (Silvana Colella, Ermanno Calzolaio)
- Università di Messina (Luigi Calabrese, Giuseppe Bonanno)
- Università di Milano (Maria Pia Abbracchio, Paola Galimberti)
- Università di Milano-Bicocca (Bonaria Biancu, Silvia Penati)
- Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia (Paolo Pavan, Ferdinando Di Maggio)
- Università di Padova (Fabio Zwirner, Andrea Berti)
- Università di Palermo (Annamaria Bartolotta, Maria Luisa Saladino)
- Università di Pavia (Elisa Roma, Federico Forneris)
- Università di Pisa (Alessandro Tredicucci, Vittoria Raffa)
- Università di Torino (Alessandro Vercelli)
- Università di Trento (Vanessa Ravagni, Francesca Demichelis)
- Università di Trieste (Alessandro Baraldi)
- Università di Urbino Carlo Bo (Orazio Cantoni, Erika Pigliapoco)
- Università di Verona (Denis Delfitto)
- Università per Stranieri di Siena (Caterina Toschi)
- Università Politecnica delle Marche (Paolo Mariani, Nadia Raffaelli)
- Università Roma Tre (Paolo Visca, Francesco Ferracci)
- Università Suor Orsola Benincasa (Simona Collina, Lucilla Gatt)
Join the Chapter!
Interested in joining the National Chapter?
Do you have any questions?
Please contact:
Monica Di Luca
University of Milan
Giuliana Rubbia
INGV
Activities
Updated on 13 October 2026
Launch of Monthly Webinars and 8 Working Groups
To reach the goals of the CoARA NC Italy work programme, eight working groups have been formed and are active, with good participation by the institutions, regular meetings, and reporting. Continuous and rigorous communication and engagement are ongoing.
Since May 2026, monthly webinars, CoARA Pills, are provided to learn more about various aspects related to the research evaluation reform, its connection to Open Science, best practices in universities or research institutions implementing Action Plans, and specific perspectives from various disciplines. CoARA Pills are recorded and made available on Zenodo, in the CoARA Pills Community.
CoARA NC Italy supports the WG TIER Dissemination Tour and other targeted discussions
Since May 2026, as well, CoARA NC Italy supports the CoARA WG TIER Dissemination Tour, and it amplifies the message on the mitigation of biases, particularly gender bias, in research evaluation.
During summer 2026, presentations were given at local events such as those organised by the LEVRA and MUSEVAL Cascade Funding projects, and at administrators’ meetings like that of CODAU, the Conference of General Directors of University Administrations.
A targeted dialogue with the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) began in July 2026.
After the forum held in March in Madrid, participation in the CoARA final conference at CNRS in Paris in early September provided a further opportunity to strengthen relationships with the various stakeholders in the National Chapters, Working Groups and CoARA Boost projects.
Regarding recruitment and career progressions, discussions are ongoing on narrative CVs and the adoption of a modular matrix of dimensions and criteria, from which to select the most appropriate elements for the specific evaluation context, also taking tools such as the FIN-CAM model as a reference. Moreover, regarding Open Research Information, discussions are ongoing about the use of proprietary or closed infrastructures and systems (Scopus, WoS, etc.) and, on the other hand, the open infrastructures employed (including OpenAlex and OpenAIRE).
Previous Activities
CoARA NC 2025-2027 Work Programme Launch
The Italian National Chapter of CoARA now represents 59 Italian institutions, including universities, research centres and associations. On 4 February 2026, NC Italy met at the University of Milan to launch the 2025–27 programme.
The 2025–27 work programme, building on the first three years, is structured around a strategic vision aimed at: promoting the development of action plans by all participating institutions, monitoring their progress, supporting alignment with international thematic Working Groups, strengthening exchanges with other National Chapters, and disseminating best practices among institutions.
A crucial step will be the involvement of Ministries to ensure greater coherence between actions identified by the community and evaluation and funding policies at the national level. During the kick-off meeting, the work programme was discussed from both strategic and operational perspectives. Invited speakers from Italy presented ongoing experiences with narrative CVs, key perspectives on inclusive research assessment from CoARA WG TIER, and the responsible use of indicators and metrics from CoARA WG RMI. Members have now started working on work packages to achieve their objectives. In the near future, in-person events and webinars are foreseen to reach out activities to their full potential.
NC Italy at the 3rd National Chapter Exchange Forum in Madrid, Spain
On 19-20 March 2026, NC Italy attended the 3rd NC Forum in Madrid, presenting the main challenges within Italy. Co-Chair of the NC Italy, Giuliana Rubbia, participated in panel discussions focusing on fostering connections within the wider CoARA community.
“We are keen to share crucial issues and possible solutions with other NCs,” said Giuliana Rubbia, in the spirt of co-creation and mutual inspiration that characterised the event.
