DOI: 10.3897/rio.12.e193918

Authors: Erica Zaja, Will Brownlie, Rajabu Hamisi, Maja Arsic, Adelaide Asante, Hilary Barraclough, André Bationo, Martin Blackwell, Dana Cordell, James Elser, Oluwole Fatunbi, Kwame Frimpong, Elise Gallois, Enam Gbekor, Kailyn Harris-Gilliam, Philip Haygarth, Ludwig Hermann, Kenneth Irvine, Issy Lewis, Ning Liu, Vincent Logah, Kaushik Majumdar, Muneta Grace Manzeke-Kangara, Eric Mensah, Malika Mezeli, Michael Miyittah, Innocent Muhwezi, Frederick Otu-Larbi, Richard Padi, Kasper Reitzel, Seth Robinson, Collins Tay, Francis Tetteh, Louis Tetteh, Shamie Zingore, Bryan Spears

Abstract: Phosphorus sustains global food production and is, therefore, of crucial importance to human nutrition and health. However, its mismanagement can lead to water pollution and environmental degradation in addition to low crop yields. In many parts of sub-saharan Africa, phosphorus deficiency constrains agricultural productivity and exacerbates food insecurity. Despite these challenges, phosphorus remains a fragmented topic in global and African policy. To address these issues, the 8th Sustainable Phosphorus Summit (SPS8) was convened in Africa for the first time. SPS8 took place in Accra, Ghana, between 30th September and 3rd October 2025. The Summit was an international collaboration, with co-conveners from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) – Ghana, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology West Africa Office, Lancaster University and Rothamsted Research. In this paper, we give a detailed overview of the key messages and insights that emerged from highlight talks, lectures, working groups and field trips. We also discuss and reflect on the challenges of delivering an inclusive summit, from designing solutions to benefit-sharing. SPS8 demonstrates that inclusive, cross-sector knowledge-exchange events are crucial to support and enable phosphorus sustainability on the continent of Africa and globally and to enable the next generation of interdisciplinary phosphorus researchers.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.11.e163817

Authors: Laurel Haak, Katherine Skinner, Kristen Ratan

Abstract: Research activities utilise and depend on interlocking infrastructures – tools, standards, protocols, and other systems and structures at local, national, and international scales that enable researchers to collaborate, analyze and share data and software, and discuss their research findings. Despite growing policy momentum towards open science, a significant challenge persists: a substantial portion of research infrastructure remains inherently closed or restrictive. This lack of openness undermines transparency, integrity, limits reproducibility, and constrains researchers’ ability to fully engage with each other. In this paper, we examine how research infrastructures can be designed to embed open principles throughout their development and operation, borrowing elements from Manufacturing Principles, Systemic Service Design, and Open Science frameworks. We propose an open-by-design reference framework for infrastructure builders and guidance for enabling, making visible, and incentivizing specific elements of “openness” within research infrastructures that are prerequisites for a thriving research and knowledge ecosystem.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.10.e137412

Authors: Christine Christian, Gilbert Gwilliam III, Matt von Konrat, June Ahn, Colleen Bailey, Daniel Dodinval, Elizabeth R. Ellwood, Kate Golembiewski, Lila Higgins, Camille Jones, Vanessa Martinez, Miguel Ordeñana, Gregory Pauly

Abstract: Participatory science and "amateur" participation in scientific data collection and work has been common for hundreds of years, but has become a more formalised field of practice in recent decades. The inclusion and reliance on informally trained members of the public in scientific endeavours has especially helped connect natural history collections to the general public. In recent decades, the term used to describe these participants — citizen scientists — was intended to unite formal and informal scientists as global citizens working towards a common goal. However, the term 'citizen' today has negative connotations for many members of the public and can have a polarising effect on certain individuals. Given that the nature of participatory science is to be inclusive and inviting, it is time to change this terminology. The term 'community' science has been suggested as an alternative by some practitioners and programmes. This self-awareness within the scientific community is important, but lacks impact without input from the community members potentially participating in these programmes. We addressed this knowledge gap by posing the question of term preference to groups of volunteers who have attended participatory science activities from the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, Illinois, USA) and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (Los Angeles, California, USA) from 2019 to 2023. A majority of respondents showed a clear preference for the term 'community' over 'citizen' science. This was especially true for younger individuals and those who belong to ethnic groups other than White. This information can impact which terms are used for specific programme populations and supports community involvement in selecting terminology and in project design. We advise stopping use of the term 'citizen' in all participatory science programmes and adopting terminology that is most appropriate depending on region, research, audience and activity. Moreover, participant populations should be solicited to hear their voices.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.10.e120629

Authors: Matt Woodburn, Laurence Livermore, Esme Chapman, Ruth Benny, Nancy Chillingworth, Polly Parry, Ben Scott, Vincent Smith, Helen Hardy

Abstract: There have been few, if any, open data and information management policies openly published from natural science collections. This paper contextualises the rationale for publishing the Open Information and Exceptions Policy of the Natural History Museum, London and provides the policy itself. The policy outlines how the Natural History Museum puts the principle of 'open by default' into practice; and includes sections on purpose and scope, relationship to relevant legislation (which always takes precedence over the policy), the categories of possible exceptions to open information release, what happens when exceptions are declared, relations to UK government information security classifications and definition of terms.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.9.e108804

Authors: Daniel Mietchen

Abstract: This proposal outlines an open, transparent and collaborative process to design a Metascience Institute that would apply the scientific method onto itself, with the mission to improve the research landscape systemically in terms of maximizing societal benefit and public documentation thereof. This facility is envisaged to engage in the systematic study of the research ecosystem, initially at a national level in Germany but later on also in other contexts. As such, the Metascience Institute would assess systemic properties, interactions of different components within and beyond the research system and how the roles played by various components are aligned with goals of relevant stakeholder groups and broader societal benefits. Collaborating with any interested stakeholders on an initially narrow yet steadily expanding range of intra- and transdisciplinary use cases and using an appropriate mix of experimental, theoretical, empirical and computational approaches, the Metascience Institute would assess existing and proposed policies and practices in the research ecosystem and engage in public discourse around them, including by assessing the relative costs, benefits and side effects of alternative parametrizations of the system. The project proposed here is to design the organizational structure of such a Metascience Institute in an evidence-based and community-led fashion, to seed it with organizational values, to establish it as an independent legal entity with open and transparent policies and practices, to provide it with an initial technical infrastructure online, to design evidence-based and sustainable mechanisms by which it prioritizes its activities, and to document the entire process in a way that would facilitate reuse and adaptation by other communities or entities aiming at evidence-based systemic improvements to the research ecosystem or selected niches within it.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.9.e105155

Authors: Mathilde Bessert-Nettelbeck, Andreas Bischof, Ulrike Sturm, Emilia Nagy, Martina Schraudner, Julia Backhaus, Till Bruckermann, Susanne Hecker, Justus Henke, Karola Köpferl, Sabrina Kirschke, Christin Liedtke, Felix Mahr, Arne Maibaum, Audrey Podann, Wiebke Rössig, Martina Schäfer, Carolin Schröder, Philipp Schrögel, Victoria Shennan, Norbert Steinhaus, Mhairi Stewart, Vanessa van den Bogaert, Silke Voigt-Heucke

Abstract: Citizen science, transdisciplinary research, dialogic forms of science communication or public engagement: these and other research approaches and fields, often subsumed under participatory research, have in common that they enable people outside of academia to actively engage in the production of scientific knowledge. However, each of these fields sets its own goals, uses different formats and has a different scope and impact. The conference 'Opportunities and Limitations of Participation in Academia' held in September 2022 as part of the German Science Year 'Participate!' aimed to connect the various participation communities in Germany and to explore commonalities and success factors. Through intensive discussions in four working groups, a keynote speech and a panel discussion, the conference initiated an exchange of ideas and experiences amongst researchers in a converging field. This report is a summary of the key questions and outcomes of the conference.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e94685

Authors: Shweata Hegde, Ayush Garg, Peter Murray-Rust, Daniel Mietchen

Abstract: Ethical aspects of research continue to gain attention, be that in the process of proposing and planning research or performing, documenting or publishing it. One of the ways in which this trend manifests itself is the increasingly common addition of ethics statements to publications in fields like biomedicine, psychology or ethnography. Such ethics statements in publications provide the reader with a window into some of the practical yet typically hidden aspects of research ethics. As more and more publications are becoming available in full text and in machine readable formats through repositories like Europe PubMed Central, we propose to mine the literature for ethics statements and to extract information about the various aspects of research ethics that they address. The more standardized these statements are, the better the mined materials can be converted into structured and queryable information that can in turn be used to inform efforts towards higher levels of standardization in research ethics. This paper sketches out the motivation for such mining and outlines some methodological approaches that could be leveraged towards this end.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e89980

Authors: Rima-Maria Rahal, Hanjo Hamann, Hilmar Brohmer, Florian Pethig

Abstract: The open and transparent documentation of scientific processes has been established as a core antecedent of free knowledge. This also holds for generating robust insights in the scope of research projects. To convince academic peers and the public, the research process must be understandable and retraceable (reproducible), and repeatable (replicable) by others, precluding the inclusion of fluke findings into the canon of insights. In this contribution, we outline what reproducibility and replicability (R&R) could mean in the scope of different disciplines and traditions of research and which significance R&R has for generating insights in these fields. We draw on projects conducted in the scope of the Wikimedia "Open Science Fellows Program" (Fellowship Freies Wissen), an interdisciplinary, long-running funding scheme for projects contributing to open research practices. We identify twelve implemented projects from different disciplines which primarily focused on R&R, and multiple additional projects also touching on R&R. From these projects, we identify patterns and synthesize them into a roadmap of how research projects can achieve R&R across different disciplines. We further outline the ground covered by these projects and propose ways forward.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.8.e89446

Authors: Ulrike Sturm, Elisabeth Heyne, Elisa Herrmann, Bergit Arends, Anna-Lisa Dieter, Eric Dorfman, Frank Drauschke, Nicole Heller, Rebecca Kahn, Katja Kaiser, Gerda Koch, Nicolas Kramar, Alicia Mansilla Sánchez, Franz Mauelshagen, Tahani Nadim, Richard Pell, Mareike Petersen, Katharina Schmidt-Loske, Henning Scholz, Colin Sterling, Helmuth Trischler, Sarah Wagner

Abstract: The knowledge needed to tackle future environmental and societal challenges can only be generated through exchange between science and society. The conventional distinction made between natural and cultural heritage in museums and other institutions is no longer appropriate in the Anthropocene. Museums must rethink the social and cultural dimensions of existing museum collections and reinvent the organization of knowledge production for our present. In three workshops at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, practitioners and interdisciplinary theorists discussed the concept of “Anthropocenic objects” and considered how they create opportunities for the emergence of new collecting practices involving participatory research and open exchange between research, society, and conservation institutions.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.7.e71553

Authors: M.V. Eitzel

Abstract: In the face of the "crisis of reproducibility" and the rise of "big data" with its associated issues, modeling needs to be practiced more critically and less automatically. Many modelers are discussing better modeling practices, but to address questions about the transparency, equity, and relevance of modeling, we also need the theoretical grounding of social science and the tools of critical theory. I have therefore synthesized recent work by modelers on better practices for modeling with social science literature (especially feminist science and technology studies) to offer a "modeler’s manifesto": a set of applied practices and framings for critical modeling approaches. Broadly, these practices involve 1) giving greater context to scientific modeling through extended methods sections, appendices, and companion articles, clarifying quantitative and qualitative reasoning and process; 2) greater collaboration in scientific modeling via triangulation with different data sources, gaining feedback from interdisciplinary teams, and viewing uncertainty as openness and invitation for dialogue; and 3) directly engaging with justice and ethics by watching for and mitigating unequal power dynamics in projects, facing the impacts and implications of the work throughout the process rather than only afterwards, and seeking opportunities to collaborate directly with people impacted by the modeling.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e31827

Authors: Johanna Seibt, Christina Vestergaard

Abstract: This article introduces a new communicational format called Fair Proxy Communication. Fair Proxy Communication is a specific communicational setting in which a teleoperated robot is used to remove perceptual cues of implicit biases in order to increase the perceived fairness of decision-related communications. The envisaged practical applications of Fair Proxy Communication range from assessment communication (e.g. job interviews at Affirmative Action Employers) to conflict mediation, negotiation and other communication scenarios that require direct dialogue but where decision-making maybe negatively affected by implicit social biases. The theoretical significance of Fair Proxy Communication pertains primarily to the investigation of 'mechanisms' of implicit social cognition in neuropsychology, but this new communicational format also raises many research questions for the fields of organisational psychology, negotiation and conflict research and business ethics. Fair Proxy Communication is currently investigated by an interdisciplinary research team at Aarhus University, Denmark.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e30829

Authors: Steven Van Tuyl, Amanda Whitmire

Abstract: In recent years, the academic research data management (RDM) community has worked closely with funding agencies, university administrators, and researchers to develop best practices for RDM. The RDM community, however, has spent relatively little time exploring best practices used in non-academic environments (industry, government, etc.) for management, preservation, and sharing of data. In this poster, we present the results of a project wherein we approached a number of non-academic corporations and institutions to discuss how data is managed in those organizations and discern what the academic RDM community could learn from non-academic RDM practices. We conducted interviews with 10-20 companies including tech companies, government agencies, and consumer retail corporations. We present the results in the form of user stories, common themes from interviews, and summaries of areas where the RDM community might benefit from further understanding of non-academic data management practices.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21773

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: A pilot project worked with seven existing projects funded by the International Development Research Center of Canada (IDRC) to investigate the implementation of data management and sharing requirements within development research projects. The seven projects, which were selected to achieve a diversity of project types, locations, host institutions and subject areas, demonstrated a broad range of existing capacities to work with data and access to technical expertise and infrastructures. The pilot project provided an introduction to data management and sharing concepts, helped projects develop a Data Management Plan, and then observed the implementation of that plan. In examining the uptake of Data Management and Sharing practice amongst these seven groups the project came to question the underlying goals of funders in introducing data management and sharing requirements. It was established that the ultimate goal was a change in culture amongst grantees. The project therefore looked for evidence of how funder interventions might promote or hinder such cultural change. The project had two core findings. First that the shift from an aim of changing behaviour, to changing culture, has both subtle and profound implications for policy design and implementation. A particular finding is that the single point of contact that many data management and sharing policies create where a Data Management Plan is required at grant submission but then not further utilised is at best neutral and likely counter productive in supporting change in researcher culture. As expected, there are significant bottlenecks within research institutions and for grantees in effectively sharing data including a lack of resources and expertise. However, a core finding is that many of the bottlenecks for change relate to structural issues at the funder level. Specifically, the expectation that policy initiatives are implemented, monitored, and evaluated by Program Officers who are the main point of contact for projects. The single most productive act to enhance policy implementation may be to empower and support Program Officers. This could be achieved through training and support of individual POs, through the creation of a group of internal experts who can support others, or via provision of external support, for instance by expanding the services provided by the pilot project into an ongoing support mechanism for both internal staff and grantees. Other significant findings include: the importance of language barriers and the way in which assumptions of English language in materials, resources, services and systems permeate the entire system; that data infrastructures are poorly served by current funding arrangements and tools, particularly where they are obliged to seek continuing funding through project grants. There are also fundamental questions raised by the status of digital objects as "data". The concept of data is part of a western scientific discourse which may be both incompatible with other cultures, particularly indigenous knowledge systems. More importantly that discourse may be incompatible with values-based approaches that seek to respect indigenous knowledge through a commitment to retaining context. With the possible exception of the last finding, none of these issues are exclusive to development research. The Development Research context surfaces them more strongly through its greater diversity of goals and contexts. In many ways this project illustrates not that Development Research has particular special needs, but that it is a site that surfaces issues in policy design and implementation deserving of more consideration across the research enterprise.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21698

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: Derechos Digitales is a Latin American advocacy and research network focussed on freedom on the internet, privacy and copyright reform. For the pilot project a specific IDRC funded project was the notional focus of study. However in practice the effort for considering data sharing was aimed at being organisation wide. The organisation already shares reports and other resources (particularly images and infographics) by default. While open data was described as being “in the DNA of the organisation” there was little practice across the network of sharing preliminary and in-process materials. Some aspects of data collection on research projects, particularly to do with copyright and legal issues, have significant privacy issues and as the organisation focuses on privacy as one of its advocacy areas this is taken very seriously. Many materials from research projects are not placed online at all. Derechos Digitales run distributed projects and this creates challenges for consistent management. Alongside this the main contact at DD changed during the course of the pilot. This exchange exemplified the challenges of maintaining organisational systems and awareness through a personnel change.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21699

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: The Centre for Analysis and Forecasting of Vietnam has an IDRC-funded project “Strengthening the Economic Committee of the National Assembly in Vietnam”. The project involved collecting survey data from a large number of businesses to support the work of the Economic Committee of the National Assembly (ECNA). The survey was conducted in several rounds with a baseline survey of 773 Enterprises in 2014 and three rounds of follow-up surveys in 2015 and 2016. The project’s aims were to improve the awareness and information for ECNA on small and medium enterprises across Vietnam and to strengthen the analytical capability of ECNA in assessing the impact of macroeconomic policy on SMEs. An important characteristic of the project is that it is focussed on supporting internal policy and economic discussions within Vietnam.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21702

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: HarassMap is an NGO based in Cairo that collects and maps crowdsourced data on sexual harassment in Egypt. Alongside this crowd-sourced data gathering it also offers training, workshops and advocacy programs, working with relevant parties to reduce the acceptability of all forms of sexual harassment. The project has been running since 2010 based on the Ushaidi platform. Over this time it has collected a very large number of mapped events reported largely by anonymous members of the public. The data has value both in terms of its richness; mapping data, category of harassment and descriptions are all recorded; and also as a longitudinal dataset that can inform on the success of interventions as well as the development of new forms of harassment. The project has been approached in the past by a number of researchers interested in using the data it has collected. The interest from HarassMap in Pilot Project participation was originally to obtain technical support to address how best to share data. While some technical advice was offered the focus on practice and planning was still useful. Identifying what data resources the project had, and in what form, allowed them to develop an online portal through which data can be made available to researchers on request.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21704

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: The IDRC-funded project 'Empowering Indigenous Peoples and Knowledge Systems Related to Climate Change and Intellectual Property Rights' is part of the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network (OCSDNet). The project “examiners processes of open and collaborative science related to indigenous peoples’ knowledge, climate change and intellectual property rights”. Natural Justice, the lead organisation has a strong ethical stance on the agency and control over knowledge being vested with the contributing project participants, communities of the Nama and Griqua peoples of the Western Cape of South Africa. The project focuses on questions of how climate change is affecting these communities, how do they produce and maintain knowledge relating to climate change, how that knowledge is characterised and shared (or not) with wider publics, and how legal frameworks promote or hinder the agenda of these indigenous communities and their choices to communicate and collaborate with wider publics. Indigenous Knowledge is an area where ethical issues of informed consent, historical injustice, non-compatible epistemologies and political, legal, and economic issues all collide in ways that challenge western and Anglo-American assumptions about data sharing. The group seeks to strongly model and internally critique their own ethical stance in the process of their research, through for instance, using community contracts and questioning institutional informed consent systems.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21705

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: There is a wide and growing interest in promoting Research Data Management (RDM) and Research Data Sharing (RDS) from many stakeholders in the research enterprise. Funders are under pressure from activists, from government, and from the wider public agenda towards greater transparency and access to encourage, require, and deliver improved data practices from the researchers they fund. Funders are responding to this, and to their own interest in improved practice, by developing and implementing policies on RDM and RDS. In this review we examine the state of funder policies, the process of implementation and available guidance to identify the challenges and opportunities for funders in developing policy and delivering on the aspirations for improved community practice, greater transparency and engagement, and enhanced impact. The review is divided into three parts. The first two components are based on desk research: a survey of existing policy statements drawing in part on existing surveys and a brief review of available guidance on policy development for funders. The third part addresses the experience of policy implementation through interviews with funders, policy developers, and infrastructure providers. In our review we identify, in common with other surveys, that RDM and RDS policies are increasingly common. The most developed are found amongst funders in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and European Union. However many other funders and nations have aspirational statements or are developing policy. There is a broad pattern of policy development moving from aspiration, to recommendations, to requirements, and finally reporting and auditing of data management practice. There are strong similarities across policies: a requirement for data management planning, often in grant submissions, expectations that data supporting published articles will be made available, and in many cases requirements for data archiving and availability over extended periods beyond grants. However there are also important differences in implementation. There is essentially no information available on the uptake and success of different policies in terms of compliance rates, or degrees of data availability. Many policies require a Data Management Plan as part of grant submission. This requirement can be enforced but there is disagreement on the value of this. One view is that requirements such as DMPs are the only way to force researchers to pay attention to these issues. The other is that such requirements lead to a culture of compliance in which the minimal effort is made and planning is seen as a “tick-box” exercise that has no further value. In this view requirements such as DMPs may actually be damaging the effort to effect culture change towards improved community practice. One way to bring these two views together is to see DMPs as living documents that form the basis of collaboration between researchers, funders, and data managers throughout the life of a research project. This approach is reflected in guidance on policy development that emphasises the importance of clarifying responsibilities of various stakeholders and ensuring that researchers are both recognised for good practice and see tangible benefits. More broadly this points to the need for the program of improving RDM and RDS to be shared project with the incentives for funders and researchers aligned as far as is possible. In the interviews successful policy implementation was often seen to be dependent on funders providing the required support, both in the form of infrastructure and resourcing, and via the provision of internal expertise amongst program managers. Where resources are limited, leveraging other support, especially from institutional sources, was seen as important as was ensuring the scope of policy requirements were commensurate with the support available and readiness of research communities. Throughout the desk research and the interviews a consistent theme is the desire for cultural change, where data management and sharing practices are embedded within the norms of behaviour for research communities. There is general agreement that progress from aspirational policies to achieving compliance is challenging and that broad cultural change, with the exception of specific communities, is a long way off. It is interesting to note that discussion of cultural change is largely externalised. There is little engagement with the concept of culture as an issue to consider or work with and very little engagement with models of how cultural change could be enabled. The disagreement over the value of DMPs is one example of how a lack of active engagement with culture and how it changes is leading to problems. Key Findings Policies on RDM and RDS are being developed by a number of agencies, primarily in the Global North. These policies are broadly consistent in aspiration and outlines but differ significantly in details of implementation. Policies generally develop along a path starting with aspirational statements, followed by recommendations, then requirements, and finally auditing and compliance measures. Measurement of policy adoption and compliance in terms of the over goals of increased availability and re-use of data is not tracked and is likely unmeasurable currently. Data Management Plans are a central requirement for many policies, in part because they can be made compulsory and act as a general focus for raising awareness. There are significant differences in the views of stakeholders on the value of Data Management Planning in its current form. Some stakeholders regard them as successful in raising awareness albeit with some limitations. Some regard them as actively damaging progress towards real change in practice by making RDM appear as one administrative activity among the many required for grant submission Successful policy implementation is coupled with funder support for infrastructure and training. Seeing RDM as an area for collaboration between funders and researchers may be valuable Internal expertise and support within a funder is often a gap which becomes a problem with monitoring and implementation DMPs can be a helpful part of process but it will be important to make them useful documents throughout and beyond the project If the object of RDM and RDS policy is cultural change in research communities then direct engagement with understanding the various cultures of researcher and other stakeholder communities, alongside frameworks of how they change is an important area for future focus.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e14672

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: This is the Data Management Plan for the project "Exploring the opportunities and challenges of implementing open research strategies within development institutions" the proposal for which was published as https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.2.e8880. The research proposal calls for support for a pilot project to conduct open data pilot case studies with eight (8) IDRC grantees to develop and implement open data management and sharing plans. The results of the case studies will serve to refine guidelines for the implementation of development research funders’ open research data policies.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e14673

Authors: Cameron Neylon

Abstract: There is a wide and growing interest in promoting Research Data Management (RDM) and Research Data Sharing (RDS) from many stakeholders in the research enterprise. Funders are under pressure from activists, from government, and from the wider public agenda towards greater transparency and access to encourage, require, and deliver improved data practices from the researchers they fund. Funders are responding to this, and to their own interest in improved practice, by developing and implementing policies on RDM and RDS. In this review we examine the state of funder policies, the process of implementation and available guidance to identify the challenges and opportunities for funders in developing policy and delivering on the aspirations for improved community practice, greater transparency and engagement, and enhanced impact. The review is divided into three parts. The first two components are based on desk research: a survey of existing policy statements drawing in part on existing surveys and a brief review of available guidance on policy development for funders. The third part addresses the experience of policy implementation through interviews with funders, policy developers, and infrastructure providers. In our review we identify, in common with other surveys, that RDM and RDS policies are increasingly common. The most developed are found amongst funders in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and European Union. However many other funders and nations have aspirational statements or are developing policy. There is a broad pattern of policy development moving from aspiration, to recommendations, to requirements, and finally reporting and auditing of data management practice. There are strong similarities across policies: a requirement for data management planning, often in grant submissions, expectations that data supporting published articles will be made available, and in many cases requirements for data archiving and availability over extended periods beyond grants. However there are also important differences in implementation. There is essentially no information available on the uptake and success of different policies in terms of compliance rates, or degrees of data availability. Many policies require a Data Management Plan as part of grant submission. This requirement can be enforced but there is disagreement on the value of this. One view is that requirements such as DMPs are the only way to force researchers to pay attention to these issues. The other is that such requirements lead to a culture of compliance in which the minimal effort is made and planning is seen as a “tick-box” exercise that has no further value. In this view requirements such as DMPs may actually be damaging the effort to effect culture change towards improved community practice. One way to bring these two views together is to see DMPs as living documents that form the basis of collaboration between researchers, funders, and data managers throughout the life of a research project. This approach is reflected in guidance on policy development that emphasises the importance of clarifying responsibilities of various stakeholders and ensuring that researchers are both recognised for good practice and see tangible benefits. More broadly this points to the need for the program of improving RDM and RDS to be shared project with the incentives for funders and researchers aligned as far as is possible. In the interviews successful policy implementation was often seen to be dependent on funders providing the required support, both in the form of infrastructure and resourcing, and via the provision of internal expertise amongst program managers. Where resources are limited, leveraging other support, especially from institutional sources, was seen as important as was ensuring the scope of policy requirements were commensurate with the support available and readiness of research communities. Throughout the desk research and the interviews a consistent theme is the desire for cultural change, where data management and sharing practices are embedded within the norms of behaviour for research communities. There is general agreement that progress from aspirational policies to achieving compliance is challenging and that broad cultural change, with the exception of specific communities, is a long way off. It is interesting to note that discussion of cultural change is largely externalised. There is little engagement with the concept of culture as an issue to consider or work with and very little engagement with models of how cultural change could be enabled. The disagreement over the value of DMPs is one example of how a lack of active engagement with culture and how it changes is leading to problems. Key Findings Policies on RDM and RDS are being developed by a number of agencies, primarily in the Global North. These policies are broadly consistent in aspiration and outlines but differ significantly in details of implementation. Policies generally develop along a path starting with aspirational statements, followed by recommendations, then requirements, and finally auditing and compliance measures. Measurement of policy adoption and compliance in terms of the over goals of increased availability and re-use of data is not tracked and is likely unmeasurable currently. Data Management Plans are a central requirement for many policies, in part because they can be made compulsory and act as a general focus for raising awareness. There are significant differences in the views of stakeholders on the value of Data Management Planning in its current form. Some stakeholders regard them as successful in raising awareness albeit with some limitations. Some regard them as actively damaging progress towards real change in practice by making RDM appear as one administrative activity among the many required for grant submission Successful policy implementation is coupled with funder support for infrastructure and training. Seeing RDM as an area for collaboration between funders and researchers may be valuable Internal expertise and support within a funder is often a gap which becomes a problem with monitoring and implementation DMPs can be a helpful part of process but it will be important to make them useful documents throughout and beyond the project If the object of RDM and RDS policy is cultural change in research communities then direct engagement with understanding the various cultures of researcher and other stakeholder communities, alongside frameworks of how they change is an important area for future focus.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e11875

Authors: Florian Wetzel, Katherine Despot Belmonte, Heather Bingham, Evelyn Underwood, Anke Hoffmann, Christoph Häuser, Piotr Mikolajczyk, Katrin Vohland

Abstract:

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e8860

Authors: Chris Hartgerink, Jelte Wicherts, Marcel van Assen

Abstract: We aim to investigate how statistical tools can help detect potential data fabrication in the social- and medical sciences. In this proposal we outline three projects to assess the value of such statistical tools to detect potential data fabrication and make the first steps in order to apply them automatically to detect data anomalies, potentially due to data fabrication. In Project 1, we examine the performance of statistical methods to detect data fabrication in a mixture of genuine and fabricated data sets, where the fabricated data sets are generated by actual researchers who participate in our study. We also interview these researchers in order to investigate, in Project 2, different data fabrication characteristics and whether data generated with certain characteristics are better detected with current statistical tools than others. In Project 3 we use software to semi-automatically screen research articles to detect data anomalies that are potentially due to fabrication, and develop and test new software forming the basis for automated screening of research articles for data anomalies, potentially due to data fabrication, in the future.

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.2.e8880

Authors: Cameron Neylon, Leslie Chan

Abstract:

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.1.e7547

Authors: Daniel Mietchen, Ross Mounce, Lyubomir Penev

Abstract:

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DOI: 10.3897/rio.1.e7462

Authors: Chris Hartgerink, Stephen George

Abstract: Clinical trials are crucial in determining the effectiveness of treatments and directly affect clinical and policy decisions. These decisions are undermined if the data are problematic due to data fabrication or other errors. Researchers have worked on developing statistical methods to detect problematic data. This project aims to develop new methods and apply them to results reported in the ClinicalTrials.gov database. Using both established and and the newly developed statistical methods we will investigate the prevalence of problematic data, trends of problematic data over time, and whether the prevalence of problematic data is predicted by trial characteristics such as funding type.

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