Czech Republic

All research outcomes produced by Czech research-performing organisations are reported annually in the national R&D Information System, a comprehensive bibliographic database that also includes information on research grants, project calls and other research activities since the late 1990s.

Governance

The Research, Development, and Innovation Council (RDI Council) in the Czech Republic is responsible for developing the national evaluation methodology and allocating the core research budget to public funding providers. The corresponding department of the Office of the Government carries out the national-level evaluation, covering Modules 1 and 2, while individual funding providers perform provider-level evaluations using their own methodologies based on Modules 3, 4 and 5. For example, the higher education sector (universities) is overseen by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) and universities conduct self-evaluations following MEYS rules (Methodology for Evaluation of Research Organisations in the Higher Education Institutions Segment 2025+). In contrast, the Czech Academy of Sciences evaluates its own research institutes independently, following its own procedures.

The evaluation is mandatory for research performing organisations applying for institutional support under the state funding scheme for the long-term conceptual development of research organisations (LCDRO), which provides institutional funding for a five-year period.

Operation of the exercise

Within Methodology 2025+, the national-level evaluation focuses on assessment of scholarly outputs and scientific impact, or societal interaction, while the provider-level evaluation focuses on societal interaction, organisational governance and strategy.

Both national- and provider-level evaluations focus on the individual research performing organisations in the Czech Republic in terms of their quality and impact (Module 1), performance (Module 2), and environment (Modules 3–5). 

Module 2 – ‘Research Performance’ – also provides an assessment of the research organisation’s output by field and compares the quality at national, European, and global levels.

Methods used in the evaluation vary by level and module.The national-level evaluation is based on informed peer review: the quality of selected research outputs (Module 1) is assessed through peer review (the number of outputs depends on the institution’s size), and research performance (Module 2) is assessed using quantitative metrics based on the quartile rank derived from the Article Influence Score. Results from Modules 1 and 2 are consolidated, reviewed by national expert panels, and assigned a grade from A (excellent) to D (below average). 

Provider-level evaluation, which covers the assessment of societal interaction, governance, and strategy and policies of the organisation (Modules 3–5), is based on peer review. In the case of higher education institutions, it also includes self-evaluation reports and on-site visits by evaluation panels. Self-evaluation reports combine narrative descriptions with statistical data and cover multiple aspects of the institutional environment, including societal impact, grants, personnel policy, doctoral studies, awards and recognition, internal assessments, and strategies (for more information, see the Methodology for Evaluation of Research Organizations in the Higher Education Segment 2025+ ).

The overall result of the five-module evaluation (5-year cycle) is a grade from A to D. This grade is determined firstly from the Modules 1–2 final report and secondly through an algorithm that aggregates sub-grades assigned to evaluated aspects of Modules 3–5, with each module weighted according to its importance. The grading is decided and authorised through joint discussions between the funding provider, the RDI Council, expert panel representatives, and, for universities, the Czech Rectors Conference.

Based on their grade, institutions receive a corresponding share of institutional support from the state. Impact or specific funding mechanisms differ between different providers (e.g., MEYS, Czech Academy of Sciences). The core budget for research, however, is a part of the overall volume allocated to the given research performing organisation for their activity.

History, reviews and evaluations

Before 2017, publication points were used to allocate the majority of the core research budget through a formula that translated points into monetary value and favoured journal articles indexed in Web of Science and Scopus over non-indexed journal articles, books, and other types of outputs, as well as some disciplines over others. In the most developed version of this methodology, there was a minor share of peer review of selected results.

The current national system was introduced in 2017. The first iteration was in 2020 and was actualised in 2024–2025 for the second iteration conducted in 2025 (Methodology 2025+). There is no meta-research yet on the effects, uptake, or unintended consequences of the Methodology. Reflection of strategic recommendations from the first run in 2020 and their implementation was part of the self-evaluation reports in the second 2025 iteration, which has not yet finished (as of October 2025).

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and the Czech RDI Council are among the signatories of the CoARA agreement. According to the expert who provided the information on the national research evaluation system in the Czech Republic, Michal Petr, “We can only presume from the experiences and discussions, but our experience suggest that, even though the Methodology is based mainly on peer review methods, the influence of metrics on quality notions is very strong in the Czech academia. There are still very few universities that have developed peer-review-based internal assessment systems, and those that have signed CoARA”.

Last updated: November 2025 

Acknowledgement: Information provided by Michal Petr.