Toward equitable open research: stakeholder co-created recommendations for research institutions, funders and researchers

Abstract

Open Research aims to make research more accessible, transparent, reproducible, shared and collaborative. Doing so is meant to democratize and diversify access to knowledge and knowledge production, and ensure that research is useful outside of academic contexts. Increasing equity is therefore a key aim of the Open Research movement, yet mounting evidence demonstrates that the practices of Open Research are implemented in ways that undermine this. In response, we convened a diverse community of researchers, research managers and funders to co-create actionable recommendations for supporting the equitable implementation of Open Research. Using a co-creative modified Delphi method, we generated consensus-driven recommendations that address three key problem areas: the resource-intensive nature of Open Research, the high cost of article processing charges, and obstructive reward and recognition practices at funders and research institutions that undermine the implementation of Open Research. In this paper, we provide an overview of these issues, a detailed description of the co-creative process, and present the recommendations and the debates that surrounded them. We discuss these recommendations in relation to other recently published ones and conclude that implementing ours requires ‘global thinking’ to ensure that a systemic and inclusive approach to change is taken.

Article processing charges for open access journal publishing: A review

“…This is turn generates citation advantages and leads to further funding down the line. Cole et al (2023) identified high costs of APCs as one of the issues undermining open research. In fact, this issue proved to be the most controversial when they used a Delphi method to provide recommendations on how to combat open research inequities.…”

Fostering Open Data Practices in Research-Performing Organizations

“…Open data have evolved over the past years to decades into a fundamental part of open science and responsible research and innovation [2,3,36,37]. Some reforms are already underway, such as larger investments in information technology infrastructures, exemplary policies emphasizing open data practices, and an overall tendency and collective need towards the collaborative nature of sustainable science.…”

“…The current international survey by Digital Science, Figshare, and Springer Nature on the state of open data argues that actions need to be taken to better support communi-ties in adopting open data [36]. Recommendations have been co-created by researchers, research-performing institutions, and funders on strategies to overcome the barrier of the resource-intensive nature of open research, next to the development of constructive reward and recognition practices [37]. These include, amongst others, the transparency and the support of costs for open research practices, the exchange with less-resourced institutions, open research infrastructures, and collaboration between funders, research institutions, and all regional as well as global stakeholder groups towards a reformed research culture of openness and responsible research and innovation.…”

“…While open science has been addressed many times in recent (meta)science publications and activities [25,31,37,38], this work will focus on the integral component of open data together with application-oriented strategies to foster corresponding practices at research-performing institutions.…”

(Why) Are Open Research Practices the Future for the Study of Language Learning?

“…These have the potential to change the way institutions and society conceptualize an academic career, allowing institutions to adopt hiring and evaluation frameworks that are not (as) centered on bibliographic metrics (e.g., Benedictus et al., 2016; for wider discussions about incentivization, see McKiernan et al., 2016; Nosek et al., 2012). Crucially, the field must maintain equity as a central goal in implementing any such reconceptualizations and changes to incentivization (for further discussion, see Cole et al., 2022; Ross‐Hellauer, 2022).…”