On April 12, 2022, our eLife Community Ambassadors and Open Science Champions heard and discussed strategies to sustainably advocate for open science (OS), as well as greater integrity and equity in research.
The aim of the webinar was to introduce OS to this global group of more than 300 early-career researchers (ECRs), as well as to discuss different ways of practising OS and how to overcome the barriers to adopting these – all under the guidance of our experienced panel of open science advocates. With our Community Ambassadors programme, we want to enable each researcher to consider their role in creating a more open and inclusive global research environment, and to facilitate a space and community for all those interested to voice any questions about or ideas for promoting OS practices in their local research communities.
This webinar event consisted of five speaker presentations and a Q&A session.
Stuart King, Ph.D – Research Culture Manager, eLife: discussed eLife’s mission as an open-access journal and how improving research depends on reforming research culture to better support more openness in science, such as through open-source technology, data and code, as well as our peer-review model.
Hannah Hope, Ph.D – Open Research Lead, Wellcome: presented on open science at Wellcome, describing practices such as the focus on grantee-facing policies and infrastructure to enable those policies, promoting open and innovative publication models, as well as the reuse of data through secondary analysis prizes. Hannah described ways for researchers to identify their practice and influence, with tips and tricks on where to start.
Emmy Tsang, Ph.D – Engagement Lead, Invest in Open Infrastructure, and Co-Director, Open Life Science: presented her open science journey, enabling attendees to understand through her first-hand experience that there are many different ways of practising Open Science. She explained that while barriers may arise, communities and initiatives such as Open Life Sciences provide support for all to enable OS.
Batool Almarzouq, Ph.D – Founder, Open Science Community Saudi Arabia (OSCSA): presented on why you should care about OS and how it has benefitted her career. Batool then discussed the challenges she faced in the adoption of OS in Arabic-speaking countries and how she overcame them. She also provided a call to action for researchers to join a community of practice in their own region.
Iratxe Puebla – Director of Strategic Initiatives & Community, ASAPbio: described her journey to OS, the mission at ASAPbio to promote OS and the role of preprints to achieve this. Iratxe addressed some common misconceptions about preprints and stated simple ways to get involved with preprints.
The webinar was followed by a Q&A and discussion, moderated by eLife Community Manager Ailís O’Carroll, where participants asked how they can join and engage with OS practices going forward.
####
We welcome comments, questions and feedback. Please annotate publicly on the article or contact us at hello [at] elifesciences [dot] org.
Interested in our full selection of webinars on topics such as preprints, finding funding and more? Take a look at the collection of past reports and recordings.
