Open Science, which pursues openly accessible, participatory, and reliable research, is becoming increasingly important in academia. This movement is gaining traction among governing bodies such as NWO, the European Commission and universities, providing the need for sound scientific research on strengthening Open Science within the academic community. One of the problems that Open Science faces is that many scientific results are not (or cannot be) reproduced and as such lack credibility.
Improving reproducibility
The European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme asked consortia earlier this year for research ideas, interventions, and solutions to enhance the reproducibility of scientific results. The University Medical Centre Utrecht (UMCU), as a frontrunner in Open Science application, asked us to support a grant application for this call led by Dr. Inge Stegeman, together with a consortium including Amsterdam UMC (Dr. Mariska Leeflang) and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Dr. Veerle van den Eynden).
With just under a month to go, it was up to our team (Anne Koopman and Marlieke van Kesteren) to assess the existing application and determine where we could still strenghen the consortium, research plan, and intended impact. To best support reproducibility in science, it is important to encourage behavioural change across academia. We therefore rapidly liaised with key stakeholders (scientific journals, grant makers, and Open Science advisers and organisations) to be able to ensure large-scale impact.
OSIRIS
At the same time, together with the consortium and UMCU’s Research Support, we polished text and structure, sharpened the goals and research plan, and discussed ways to reach and motivate as many people as possible to achieve a large-scale culture change. To clarify the strength of the research plan and the consortium, we created clear figures, tables, and designed a clear layout. And with success: Open Science to Increase Reproducibility In Science (OSIRIS) was one of the two proposals honoured within this call, an achievement to be proud of!
We wish the OSIRIS consortium good luck in carrying out their research and embedding reproducibility within academia. We look back on a very pleasant collaboration and are confident that they will help facilitate this important transition.