News

On 7-8 September 2026, Thanasis Vergoulis, Principal Researcher at the Information Management Systems Institute (IMSI) of ATHENA Research Center, took part in the CoARA Conference 2026, which was held at the CNRS Auditorium in Paris. In this event, Dr Vergoulis represented both ATHENA and the CoARA Working Group "Towards Open Infrastructures for Responsible Research Assessment" (OI4RRA).

 

The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) will reach its five-year milestone in 2027. This year's conference was themed "Shaping CoARA's Future: Strengthened Communities Driving Systemic Change in Research Assessment." It was co-hosted by CNRS, ESF, Science Europe and ALLEA as part of the Horizon Europe CoARA Boost project. More than 130 community leaders and experts from across the Coalition and the wider research ecosystem attended. Over a day and a half, CoARA's Working Groups, National Chapters and Cascade Funding beneficiaries shared their outputs and lessons learned. Participants also discussed how to strengthen implementation and shape the Coalition's future direction.

 

ATHENA was the first Greek organisation to sign the CoARA Agreement, becoming a CoARA member in March 2024. Since then, it has been actively involved in CoARA activities and now leads the newly established CoARA National Chapter Greece. Dr Vergoulis's participation in Paris builds on ATHENA's long-standing engagement with open scholarly infrastructures and responsible research assessment, including its work within OpenAIREand on the BIP! services.