Five ways consortia can catalyse open science : Nature News & Comment

"Over the past four years, we have studied more than a dozen scientific consortia involved in data sharing, and we've mapped the landscape of these and another 44 such initiatives. When they work well, consortia act as catalysts, to accomplish what members cannot do alone4, 5. But scientists are seldom taught effective strategies to design and manage such coalitions. Here we distil the lessons from our fieldwork into five ways to foster open science.

There is overlap, but there are many more ways in which these two consortia are distinct and complementary. In the early stages, the iron law of oligarchy and path dependency threatened to pull apart the two initiatives. Instead, the groups drafted a memorandum of understanding, aligning interests and defining complementarity. Each organization and their stakeholders benefit from their coming together.

Science is increasingly a collaborative enterprise, but its infrastructure, social and technical, lags behind. A transition to open science cannot depend solely on policy statements, voluntary action or academic departments. Multistakeholder consortia can serve as essential catalysts by following these principles."