Getting ready for open research - Research Consulting

On Tuesday 26th June, I attended the Inside Government event Moving Towards Full Open Access in Higher Education in London. The event dealt with open access and its challenges but also, more broadly, with open research. Thanks to a pool of high-profile speakers, we were presented with a series of significant observations – in this post, I will highlight what I felt were the main points made during the day.

Open research, open science, open access, open research data?

Nowadays, it has become rather common to hear about openness in the field of research and dissemination. However, people tend to use a range of different terms in this landscape, starting from open research, the broadest and most comprehensive, down to open access (OA) and open research data (ORD). As Jisc’s Neil Jacobs reminded us, open research refers to openness throughout the whole research lifecycle, including OA and ORD but also overarching principles such as open research methods, collaborations, permissive licensing and enabling participation by a wider range of people. It should be noted that the term open science is sometimes used interchangeably with open research.