Evaluation and promotion of research quality

In order to monitor and improve the quality of scientific publications and the ability to acquire funding from projects on competitive calls, an individual evaluation and incentive system based on three actions has been launched:

1. prizes and awards on projects funded by competitive calls;
2. prizes and awards on "high quality" publications;
3. penalties for "inactive" researchers.
    

For the first action, awards are envisaged for professors and researchers who win projects on competitive calls with a significant consistency from an organisational and financial point of view and a multi-year commitment - or financially identifiable parts of complex projects (Principal investigators - PIs, heads of unit, other figures of responsibility). These awards and recognitions can be both monetary and non-monetary (partial exemption from teaching activities). Within this action there is also the possibility of requesting funding from the Research Strategy Commission for research projects of a competitive nature, attributable to international and national calls of particular design and management complexity, which have had positive evaluations from a scientific point of view, but which have not received any funding due to insufficient funds or due to mechanisms of the reference call that do not concern the scientific quality of the project. The funding is aimed at networking and reformulation activities in view of the future re-proposal of the project in the same or in other competitive calls.

For the second action, prizes will be awarded to the authors of "high quality" publications, based on standards determined by the individual Academic Discipline Committees and taking into account the evaluation criteria of the research quality assessment (VQR) exercise for their discipline. The prize can be used both as a research fund and as compensation.

The third point provides for the exclusion from direct and indirect access to internal University funds, including participation in working groups for funding applications and the implementation of funded research on these lines and exclusion from participation in commissions for the assignment of research grants, fixed-term researcher positions, commissions for the appointment of associate and full professors for researchers who, in the absence of justifications deriving from particular institutional roles or force majeure, they do not present any publication in the VQR evaluation exercises (the so-called "inactive" researchers).