How (not) to incentivise open research | Elizabeth Gadd | 2021 | The Bibliomagician

NOVEMBER 29, 2021, BY LIZZIE GADD

"How (not) to incentivise open research

I recently attended two events: the first was a workshop run by the ON-MERRIT team, a Horizon 2020 project seeking to understand how open research practices might actually worsen existing inequalities. And the second was the UKRI Enhancing Research Culture event at which I was invited to sit on a panel discussing how to foster an open research culture. At both events the inevitable question arose: ‘how do we incentivise open research?’.

And given the existing incentives system is largely based around evaluating and rewarding a researcher’s publications, citations, and journal choices, our instinct is look to alternative evaluation mechanisms to entice them into the brave new world of open. It seems logical, right? In order to incentivise open research we simply need to measure and reward open research. If we just displace the Impact Factor with the TOP Factor, the h-index with the r-index and citation-based rankings with openness rankings, all will be well. But to my mind this logic is flawed. Firstly, because openness is not a direct replacement for citedness.  Although both arguably have a link with ‘quality’ (openness may lead to it and citedness may indicate it) they are not quite the same thing. And it would be dangerous to assume that all open things are high quality things...."