Skills based assessment/development

Focusing assessment and/or career development on skills and competencies rather than on outputs and past achievements.
Level 0
Aim: Value process
Aim: Recognition
Aim: Alternative questions
CoARA Commitment 1
CoARA Commitment 2
CoARA Commitment 6
Target: Academic Institution
Target: Research Group
Target: Meta-researcher
Contributor

Experiments in Assessment WG

Publication date

April 9, 2026

Updated

April 20, 2026

WarningObjectives and potential outcome
  • Bring the focus of assessments on competencies to undertake the expected work
  • Reduce the dependency on successful/positive results
  • Make research careers more transferable to external sectors
  • Enable more permeability between academic and non-academic careers

Research domains

This assessment can fit in any domain where individuals are being assessed.

Context and considerations

Unlike most careers where skills and experiences are the core elements necessary for progressing in one’s career, academia tends to place greater emphasis on outputs and achievements, rather than skills.

Challenges and mitigations

Evaluating success

Relevant resources and literature

This section includes resources, literature, and reports relevant to this specific experimental idea.

Templates from funders and institutions

Case examples and literature

The Prosper platform helps researchers (from postdoc level) to build and identify the skills and competencies they possess, and as such, it could serve as a useful tool to identify the types of competencies that are relevant to include in research assessment.

The NOR-CAM toolbox recognises several competencies as merits, stressing however that individual academics should not be expected to excel in all areas.

Other resources

Verderame, M. F., Freedman, V. H., Kozlowski, L. M., McCormack, W. T. (2018). Competency-based assessment for the training of PhD students and early-career scientists. Elife. 31(7:e34801) https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34801.

Case Studies or Implementation Examples