Adams et. al. (2026) Openness in the arts, humanities and social sciences: Documenting open research practices beyond STEM (A MORPHSS Project Report)

Adams, Jenni, Miranda Barnes, Samuel Moore, Stephen Pinfield, and Siddharth Soni. ‘Openness in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences: Documenting Open Research Practices Beyond STEM (A MORPHSS Project Report)’. United Kingdom: MORPHSS Project, 6 February 2026. https://doi.org/10.17613/h10rz-qk035.

Summary:

Conceptual frameworks of 'Open Science' and their implementation by funders, journals, institutions and other organisations have been criticised on the grounds that they are tailored primarily to quantitative research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. This report details the findings of work by the Materialising Open Research Practices in the Humanities and Social Sciences (MORPHSS) project to identify and catalogue open research practices in the arts, humanities and (primarily qualitative) social sciences in order to reveal the nuanced and discipline-specific approaches to openness that take place in AHSS. We identify 30 open research practices in AHSS, among which we observe six key forms of openness: process openness, evidentiary openness, availability of outputs, the accessible communication of research, participatory openness and epistemic openness. Based on those identified, we find that open research practices in AHSS are diverse, extending beyond the suite of practices emphasised within dominant accounts of Open Science. We document the implications of this work for efforts to develop more discipline-inclusive ways of supporting, regulating and measuring openness, and offer recommendations for key stakeholders in the research space.