PSY | Vice Dean Nora Ruck and Vice Rector Marion Garaus Appointed Co-Chairs of the Austrian CoARA Chapter
Ass.-Prof. Nora Ruck, vice dean for research at the Faculty of Psychology, and vice rector for research, Prof. Marion Garaus, will serve as co-chairs of the newly established Austrian chapter of the CoARA initiative. This appointment marks another important milestone in the Faculty of Psychology’s ongoing efforts not only to participate in CoARA, but also to actively advance its implementation at SFU and promote its establishment at the national level. In their roles as co-chairs, the SFU appointees will contribute to strengthening collaboration among Austrian universities and supporting their alignment with CoARA principles.
Together with the Head of Quality Management, Dominik Drexel, and vice rector Marion Garaus, the Faculty of Psychology has played a leading role in advancing the implementation of the CoARA initiative at SFU. As part of CoARA, the faculty is committed to reforming research assessment in ways that acknowledge diverse research cultures and move beyond a heavy reliance on publication-based metrics.
Since September 2025, these efforts have been supported through seed funding from the European Science Foundation (ESF). Within the pilot project CoARAverse in Psychology, Nora Ruck, Dominik Drexel, and junior researchers Anoel Alshut and Jonas Hoffmann collaborate with scientific staff from different research traditions in a series of working groups dedicated to implementing CoARA principles at faculty level. Following this pilot phase, the implementation is planned to expand to the university as a whole.
More recently, collaboration with other universities committed to these goals has led to the establishment of the Austrian chapter of CoARA. The prominent role of both the Faculty of Psychology and SFU in this initiative is reflected in the appointment of Nora Ruck and Marion Garaus as co-chairs of the chapter. This marks an important step toward advancing more nuanced and inclusive criteria for research evaluation at faculty, university, and national levels.
17 June 2026