Welcome to the MERIT Portal – the platform for quality-driven, impact-oriented, and future-focused professorial recruitment at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
Since autumn 2017, Charité has expanded its approach to academic assessment by introducing four new evaluation criteria aimed at capturing a broader spectrum of scientific excellence:
These criteria enable applicants to showcase their diverse academic achievements beyond conventional metrics. In addition, the concept of academic age has been introduced to help committees contextualize career progression and productivity.
As part of the Wellcome Trust-funded MERIT Study (2019–2023), the usability and fairness of these new criteria were systematically evaluated. The outcome: the MERIT Portal – a digital tool designed to enhance transparency, comparability, and reduce bias in academic hiring.
The MERIT Portal supports the entire appointment process – from application to decision – and includes three core modules:
The MERIT Portal is embedded in the strategic agendas of both Charité (Charité Strategy 2030 – Focus Area 6) and BIH (Strategic Research Program 2023–2027). Its design is grounded in evidence from policy analysis, literature reviews, and best practices, and it aligns with leading international frameworks such as:
Our mission is to make scientific excellence visible – in all its breadth, depth, and societal relevance.
Since 2023, Charité and the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) have been co-signatories of the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and are therefore members of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). CoARA is an initiative launched, among others, by the European Commission, the European University Association, and Science Europe, with the aim of advancing the assessment of research, researchers, and research organizations. To date, more than 700 institutions worldwide have joined the coalition.
In April 2025, the first version of the CoARA Action Plan of Charité and BIH was published, representing the first deliverable for implementing the CoARA recommendations at Charité and BIH. The action plan outlines the current state of research assessment practices as well as the perspectives of internal stakeholders regarding the research assessment system at Charité and BIH.
Further information on CoARA at Charité and BIH can be found here.
Against this background, the MERIT Portal, as a knowledge-based infrastructure, constitutes a key instrument for institutionalizing the CoARA recommendations within the research assessment practices of Charité and BIH.
The MERIT Portal is currently in a pilot phase. Your feedback is crucial to further improving usability and quality. For questions or suggestions, please contact us:
📩 quest-merit@bih-charite.de
When reporting a technical issue, please use the following template:
The MERIT Portal is an in-house development of the BIH QUEST Center for Responsible Research at Charité. A white-label version is available for interested organizations and collaborative development.
Contact persons:
MERIT Portal Berufungen Charité © 2025 by Miriam Kip and Sebastian Major is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0