Beyond declarations: Metrics, rankings and responsible assessment

Responsible assessment promotes expert judgment and opposes sole reliance on research metrics when assessing research excellence. While many institutions and national research panels declare commitment to responsible assessment practices, we ask: have these declarations affected the outcomes of research evaluation? Using data from the UK's 2021 national research quality exercise and focusing on the business and management discipline, we show that the strong association between journal rankings and expert evaluations has not changed, despite institutional endorsements of DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment). Additionally, we find that this correlation is strongest for the most prestigious journals. The implications of these findings are profound: they enhance understanding of the use of metrics in research evaluations post-DORA and highlight potential constraints in the deployment of responsible assessment. • We investigate the impact of responsible assessment on research evaluation outcomes in the post-DORA landscape • We test the association between journal rankings and REF scores across 108 institutions and 13973 outputs using 2021 data • The strong correlation between journal rankings and expert score has not changed despite institutional DORA endorsements • The correlation is strongest for the most prestigious journals • This is the first conclusive evidence on post-DORA research assessment, offering lessons for research evaluations worldwide