Press release issued by the Board of Trustees of the Academia Europaea#

The Board of Trustees of the Academia Europaea have issued the following information on 12 August 2013:

A Statement of the Academia Europaea relating to the ‘San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment: Putting Science into the Assessment of Research’, first published by the American Society for Cell Biology, December 16, 2012.

The Board of Trustees of the Academia Europaea, having discussed the above declaration at an international symposium meeting of its members, held in Stockholm during May 2013, wish to make the following statement.

“The Academia Europaea as the Academy of Europe, welcomes the above declaration and supports the general direction of travel as described. It [the declaration] will initiate a much needed debate on the use of metrics in evaluation of scientific research. We strongly support the recommendation that journal-based metrics – such as impact factors – should not be used in assessing individual scientists. The Academia Europaea will continue to monitor the issues in an active way.”