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Open science is gaining global recognition and with it, an appreciation of the importance of transparency, especially in health research, to maximise research efficiency and improve patient care and health service delivery. Despite this, transitioning to open science is not plain sailing as there are still barriers to overcome.  

In this Q&A, Elaine Toomey, University of Limerick, and Ksenija Zečević, National University of Ireland/University of Ljubljana, discuss the complexities, covering the challenges and the opportunities to practising open science for early career researchers in health research in Ireland. Read on to learn about their findings of the views and experiences of ECRs, the first qualitative study to explore this, published in their Research Article on HRB Open Research. Toomey and Zečević share their recommendations for adequately preparing researchers for an open research environment early on in their careers.

We are a group of researchers from different disciplines, from health sciences to psychology and nursing. Many of us are what you might call early-career researchers, or at least we were when we started planning the study – less so now perhaps! If we’ve learned one thing from this study, it’s that early-career researcher (ECRs) is a very hard thing to define.

We believe strongly in using an evidence-based approach to all aspects of health research, including how researchers can be supported to do more transparent, open and ultimately more impactful health research. We wanted to find out how ECRs working in health research perceive open science, what are the barriers that they encounter in trying to practice open science, and what are the things that might make this easier.

At the moment, there’s very little research done in this area, and much of what is available is quantitative in nature. For us, we felt the best way to gain an in-depth understanding of this would be achieved using qualitative research methods.

How do ECRs in health research perceive open science?

ECRs perceive open science in terms of openness and transparency across the entire research cycle. So, starting from the very beginnings of the research idea, to data collection and analysis, and all the way through to publishing and disseminating research results. The participants we interviewed were recruited from a two-day workshop on open science for ECRs, and we found many attributed this perception to learnings from the workshop. In general, ECRs felt that open science leads to better research. However, they also felt that the increased accountability and transparency of open science had both positive and negative aspects for ECRs.

What do ECRs feel are the barriers to open science in health research?

ECRs identified cultural and academic pressures of the ‘publish or perish’ mantra as a key barrier. For example, they felt that open science activities like sharing data are not valued as much as things like journal impact factors or number of publications when applying for job positions or promotion.

They also experienced barriers associated with increased transparency and accountability, and fears about participants’ data protection, particularly when they are working with specific groups of people that can be easily identified.

Another obstacle they identified was a lack of support, both in terms of infrastructural/institutional supports like training and resources, but also support from their supervisors/PIs and more senior colleagues. They also pinpointed a lack of time to carry out open science activities, feeling that this further discouraged them adopting open science.

Do ECRs in health research feel they’re encouraged to practice open science?

Participants in our study were rarely directly encouraged to practice open science, and  more often felt that they were indirectly discouraged from practicing open science by the barriers they identified, which we’ve previously covered. For example, despite being at an early stage of their careers they already felt time pressure to be publishing and getting funding, and that the metrics used to evaluate their activities do not include open science practices. Overall, ECRs in our study felt that a shift in research culture is important for them to feel supported in practicing open science.

What support or services do you recommend should be provided to help ECRs?

At a basic level, the availability of training events, education and resources within research active institutions to improve open science awareness, knowledge and skills for researchers, as well as institutional policies and guidelines for all aspects of open science (e.g. not just data) would be important. Ring-fenced funding streams or awards for open science activities would also help.

However, on a deeper level, a bigger shift towards the development of a research culture of transparency and openness is needed, where the end goal is based on actual patient/society impact, not citations. This could be achieved by revisiting the policies and metrics by which research and its outputs are measured, and accordingly how researchers are hired, promoted and evaluated and to explicitly seek engagement in open science activities. For example, universities could consider signing the DORA agreement, but more importantly to first review existing university policies and then embed DORA principles throughout. 

Are there steps that ECRs can actively take themselves?  

Absolutely! We summarised three ways for ECRs to be part of the solution.

• First, to ‘Get Active’ by starting to grow an awareness of open science, and seeking out other interested people to build an open science community in their institution, and think about setting up things like ReproducibiliTea journal clubs or Open Science Cafés.

• Second, to ‘Get Vocal’ by using those communities as a platform to engage with institutional management or other committees around how to create change.

•  Third, to ‘Get Inquisitive’ by doing more research on research to help identify an evidence-based approach to changing things for the better.

As a researcher, what does open research mean to you?

We share the views of the ECRs who participated in our study; we recognise that many challenges exist to open science, with lots that still needs to be discussed, but we also see great potential for things to improve and the importance of the open science movement. We feel particularly close to the idea of the findings being presented, disseminated and accessed in an informative and understandable way to those interested.

We also wanted to practice what we preached, so we tried to take an open science approach throughout this study, including publishing on this platform. We believe being open offers great opportunities for collaboration and the possibility to get input on how to improve your work, as ours improved with the constructive comments from our peer-reviewers.

Seeing the value of open science – Read the Research Article to learn more about the study and to read the thoughts shared by ECRs on their experiences, perceptions and the factors that influence open science practices.