AGORRA

Senior Research Fellow, RoRI and Assistant Professor at CWTS, Leiden University

Alex Rushforth is Assistant Professor at CWTS, Leiden University, the Netherlands. He works in the social studies of science, with particular focus on research evaluation. Alex has longstanding interests in the uses of indicators in research and evaluation settings and his current research interests focus on the emergence, implementation and (un)intended effects of reform policies for research assessment.

Alex is currently coordinator of RoRi’s AgoRRA Project, with James Wilsdon and Claire Fraser.

Research Fellow, RoRI and PhD Candidate at CWTS, Leiden University

Nina Gogadze is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University. 

Nina is an alumna of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degree Programme in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) and holds a master’s degree from the University for Continuing Education Krems and Tampere University.

Her research interests include research assessment reform movements, national research evaluation systems, and the Europeanisation of higher education and science policies in post-Soviet countries.

Research Fellow, RoRI

Seunghyun is a Research Fellow in Metascience who joined RoRI in 2025. Her work with RoRI focuses on the AGORRA (A Global Observatory of Responsible Research Assessment) project, contributing to efforts to reform research assessment and strengthen the role of research in society.

Seunghyun is a policy researcher and analyst with expertise in science, technology, and innovation (STI) policy, research assessment, and institutional strategy. Her doctoral research at the University of Manchester explored the positioning of public research institutes within national innovation systems, suggesting a new framework for evaluating research actors through bibliometric and network analysis. This work contributes to emerging debates in metascience around interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and innovation.

Before joining RoRI, Seunghyun worked with leading national and international organisations, including the OECD and Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP), on STI strategy, capability indicators, and evaluation of public research institutes.

Research Fellow, RoRI and Researcher, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University

Judit Varga is a Researcher at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She is a social scientist with a doctorate in science and technology studies (STS) (University of Nottingham, 2021) and a background in psychology. Her work focuses on exploring the interactions between quantitative and interpretative methods in social science; the politics of quantification; values in science (evaluation); interdisciplinarity; and science in society.

Her doctoral research provided new methodological insights about combining STS and scientometrics, and explored interdisciplinary interactions in a subfield of computational social science.

As part of RoRI, Judit studies how narrative CVs shape science evaluation with Helen Buckley Woods and Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner.

Head of Programmes, RoRI 

Pete is part of the core leadership team at RoRI. Current roles include leading the oversight of RoRI’s project portfolio and supporting leadership of the AFIRE and AGORRA projects. Pete is also involved in scoping and designing RoRi’s future portfolio of projects and programmes. 

Formerly a principal consultant at Technopolis, Pete has 12 years’ experience in the field of science and research policy, having managed or directed over 30 projects and worked as a researcher on many more. Highlights from this body of work include a major study on 38 modifications to peer review for grant funding, evaluating UKRI’s research funding response to Covid-19 (process and impact), a peer-learning initiative on partnered research programmes for the GRC, and two major impact assessments for the European Social Survey (ESS). Beyond the above, Pete has worked for clients including the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Research Council of Norway, Wellcome, the Academy of Finland, the Royal Society, the Human Frontier Science Program, and the Austrian Science Fund. 

Pete is a researcher, project manager, communicator and coach, with ample experience of sharing their expertise at several academic and professional conferences and at organisations including the OECD, the GRC, the German Data Forum (RatSWD) and the UK’s House of Lords. They hold a PhD in sociology from the University of Sussex and subsequently published a book on new directions for centre-left politics in the age of globalisation. Pete is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an associate fellow of the Higher Education Academy/ Advance HE and a fluent speaker of English and German. 

Executive Director, RoRI and Professor of Research Policy at University College London (UCL)

James is one of the founders of RoRI and has been its director since 2019. He is also Professor of Research Policy at University College London (UCL), based in its Department of Science, Technology, Engineering & Public Policy (STEaPP). Since the late-1990s, as a researcher, writer, adviser and campaigner, James has worked at the heart of science and research policy in the UK and internationally. In addition to academic posts at the universities of Sheffield, Sussex and Lancaster, he has worked in think tanks, NGOs and as director of science policy for the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences. 

In his work, James has advanced concepts such as upstream public engagement, science diplomacy, responsible metrics and responsible research assessment; and he has co-founded or chaired initiatives such as People & Planet; the Campaign for Social Science; International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA); UK Forum for Responsible Research Metrics; and the Research on Research Institute (RoRI).

In 2014, James was asked to chair an independent UK government review of research metrics, published as The Metric Tide. He subsequently chaired a European Commission expert group on Next Generation Metrics, and in 2022, revisited these debates with colleagues in Harnessing the Metric Tide.

In 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences, and in 2022, of the International Science Council.

Visiting Senior Fellow, RoRI and Research Professor Emeritus, the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU)

Gunnar Sivertsen is Research Professor Emeritus at the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) in Oslo, Norway. Sivertsen’s research contributes to science-based innovation in the development of research policy, evaluation, and funding, and in the use of aggregate indicators for the same purposes.  

Senior Research Fellow, RoRI and Professor of Research Communication at the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University 

Cameron Neylon is Professor of Research Communication at the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University where he is co-lead on the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative. He is interested in how to make the internet more effective as a tool for scholarship. He writes and speaks regularly on scholarly communication, the design of web based tools for research, and the need for policy and cultural change within and around the research community.

Cameron Neylon is a one-time biomedical scientist who has moved into the humanities via Open Access and Open Data advocacy. His research and broader work focusses on how we can make the institutions that support research sustainable and fit for purpose for the 21st century and how the advent of new communications technology is a help (and in some cases a hindrance) for this.

Research Fellow, RoRI and Senior Research Analyst at DST-Centre for Policy Research, Indian Institute of Science

Moumita Koley is a senior research analyst at the DST-Centre for Policy Research, IISc, Bangalore, India. She also worked as a consultant for the International Science Council’s Future of Scientific Publishing project between March 2023 and June 2024.

Her research interest is in enhancing the accessibility of scientific output, making the research ecosystem more efficient and responsible, and ensuring that research is responsive to local problems.

Moumita holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Vienna University of Technology in Austria, where she focused on synthesising small molecules that can direct the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells towards heart muscle cells. Later, she became interested in exploring the structure and evolution of science, including various dimensions of open science, such as open access, open research data, and research evaluation.

Research Fellow, RoRI and Independent Researcher, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Argentina

Laura Rovelli is an independent researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Argentina, and professor at La Plata National University (UNLP) in Argentina. She is interested in research assessment change and policies in Latin America, with a focus on research assessment ideas and instruments, incentives for open science and doctoral evaluation, and research training in higher education.

Laura Rovelli is a political scientist and has a PhD in Social Science from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. From 2020 to 2024, she coordinated the Latin American Forum for Research Assessment (FOLEC) from the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and since 2022 onwards, she is a member of the Executive Board of DORA.

At present, she leads a research project on the potentialities and challenges in early academic career researchers in Latin America and is member of CLACSO’s WG “Open Science as a Common Good”.

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