Based on the discussions at the 14th JINSHA Meeting “The Series on Responsible Research Assessment – Creating a ‘Map’ to Move Forward” held on July 28, 2022, “Issue Map on Research Assessment in the Humanities and Social Sciences Ver.1” was completed in September of the same year.

The purpose of the map is to raise awareness of fair and responsible research assessment and to create a forum for dialogue among university research administrators (URAs) and the research community.

Building on the ongoing discussions and information accumulated so far, how can we move forward to the practice of RRA? To take up this challenge, we have decided to create a visually appealing “map” of the key issues and information regarding research assessment. Our aim is to build common grounds to discuss how far we can develop credible assessment exercises, while avoiding the repetition of the same arguments. By addressing gaps in existing knowledge and awareness on research assessment issues, we also intend to encourage University Research Administrators (URAs) and stakeholders to discuss how practical measures can be adopted to enable the implementation of RRA.

This project was planned by KURA’s HSS Support Program members (FUJIKAWA Futaba, SASAKI Yu, INAISHI Natsuko, AMANO Eriko, and FUJITA Hiroyo) and OKAZAKI Makiko of the IR team of KURA, together with the working group members from Japan Inter-institutional Network for Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts (JINSHA). The project was implemented with the support of the DORA Community Engagement Grants, and with the cooperation of MIRA TUKU, building a cooperative team across institutions and affiliations.