Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics

Overview

Metrics-driven research assessment discourages open practices: when researchers are judged on journal prestige, they are pushed toward high-impact subscription venues rather than toward sharing data, methods, and preprints openly. The Leiden Manifesto is a 2015 set of ten principles for responsible research metrics that pushes back on this, insisting that quantitative indicators support rather than replace expert judgement and that locally relevant, diverse output not be penalised. By grounding evaluation in the intrinsic qualities of research, it helps create conditions in which open work is recognised and rewarded. Published as a comment in Nature, it emerged from the 2014 International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators and is associated with the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University.

Connections

• relatedTo: DORA (the two canonical responsible-metrics documents, consistently paired; both argue against Impact-Factor-driven assessment)

Resources

• https://www.leidenmanifesto.org
• https://doi.org/10.1038/520429a (Hicks, Wouters, Waltman, de Rijcke & Rafols 2015, the Nature comment)