Introduction

In fall 2017, four additional quality, innovation and impact-oriented assessment criteria were added to the application portal for professorships at Charité. These include 1) Scientific contribution (impact narrative), 2) Self-selection of the 5 most important publications incl. impact narrative and information on the own contribution to the publication, 3) Contribution to Open Science and 4) Contribution to Team Science with naming of the most important collaborations and interactions with relevant actors. The aim was to incorporate quality and impact-oriented criteria into research assessment, allowing applicants to report more diverse and broader academic performances. In addition, the academic age was introduced to support appointment committees in the evaluation of research productivity. During 12/2019-6/2023, the MERIT project funded by the Wellcome Trust (WT) as part of the WT Charité Translational Partnership assessed the usability and accessibility of the new evaluation criteria by both the applicant and the reviewer. This led to the development of the MERIT Portal to improve accessibility, reduce bias and enable comparability in research assessment. 

Description and Goal

Knowledge-based

The MERIT Portal is a web-based software designed for transparent, fair, and quality-oriented appointment procedures for professorships. The functionalities and content of the MERIT Portal are based on structured literature reviews and policy analyses, as well as evidence from the field. The application is adapted to the local legal as well as user requirements of professorial appointments at Charité and BIH. 

Comprehensive

The MERIT Portal covers the application process for appointment from adverstising the call to the assessment and decision-making. It consists of three tools:

• Assessment Tool:  For authorized committee members to review applications with integrated bias-reduction strategies
• Application Tool: For submitting applications using a structured, narrative CV. The full set of criteria in form of a structured, narrative CV is accessible here
• Application Management Tool: For managing the entire application process

Mission-oriented

The introduction of the MERIT Portal for Appointments fits into the strategic goal of the Charité (Charité 2030 - area of action #6) and the BIH (Strategic Research Program 2023-2027 - strengthening the translational ecosystem). In addition, the application's structure, design, and content aligns with international and national recommendations on quality and impact-oriented assessments such as the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) or the DFG.  You can learn more about CoARA@Charité and BIH here.

The goals is to support and strengthen the quality and impact-oriented peer review process for professorial appointments.

Evaluation

The implementation of the MERIT Portal is continuously evaluated to improve quality, usability, performance and utility. The MERIT Portal is in the pilot phase. If you experience difficulties or have suggestions, feel free to contact us at any time (contact: quest-merit@bih-charite.de). 

How to report an issue

Please report your problem using the following template:

• Title: Briefly describe what went wrong, i.e. "Work experience section: data not saved". Try to be concise, but specific here
• Steps to reproduce the bug: Describe what actions you took before you encountered a bug (i.e. go to option X, click on sidebar link, hit enter, etc.)
• Resulting vs expected behaviour: Specify what happened compared to what you expected to happen (i.e. got an error instead of going to next page; I see an empty field instead of my data, etc.)
• Screen recording or screenshot: Please take a screenshot or screen recording and send it to us
• Technical information: Please let us know which OS (Windows/Mac/Linux) and browser (MS Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Safari) you are using

Team 

• Dr. Miriam Kip, product owner, leader research group "incentives and responsible research assessment",  BIH QUEST Center 
• Mieszko Chowaniec, software developer, extern
• Dr. Sebastian Major,  data scientist and IT infrastructure, BIH QUEST Center
• Dr. Mathias Dunkel, data scientist and IT infrastructure, Charité - GB IT
• Dr. Julieta Arancio, research fellow and community manager, BIH QUEST Center
• Carolyn Capelouto, student assistant, BIH QUEST Center

The MERIT Portal is an in-house development of the BIH QUEST Center at Charité. A white label version is available for non-profit use and joint development by external parties.

Contact: quest-merit@bih-charite.de