ON-MERRIT D6.1 Investigating Institutional Structures of Reward & Recognition in Open Science & RRI | Zenodo

This document reports on the research conducted under Task 6.1 “Investigating institutional structures or reward and recognition in Open Science & RRI”. Our work assesses the extent to which Open Science (OS) and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) are embedded in promotion processes at research performing institutions and analyses the disparity between what is valued by institutions and what is valued by researchers in the context of promotion processes.

The deliverable presents two original research studies contributing to a better understanding of current reward structures, incentives and practices as they are applied across geographical boundaries:

• The first study provides a systematic analysis of institutional Promotion, Review and Tenure policies (PRT) to determine the extent to which they, at this point in time, embed OS and RRI indicators. This study builds on Task 3.1 in which an initial international dataset of PRT policies was collected and annotated.
• The second study is based on an international survey of active researchers. It aims to assess their attitudes towards OS and RRI as well as their experience with the application of assessment indicators in PRT processes at their institutions. Additionally, it aims to identify promising incentives that would encourage researchers to practice OS and RRI.

Our findings hence show that researchers are ready for change. Yet as we look ahead to what those changes might be, we must be careful not merely to propagate the “tyranny of metrics” responsible for many of the ills within the current system. Simply uncritically introducing further indicators accounting for OS/RRI practices may do more harm than good. We hence close with considerations of the need to change not just indicators, but rather norms, and with provisional recommendations for policy-makers, institutions and researchers (to be developed in later ON-MERRIT tasks)