Equity and Inclusion in Open Science

How is the value of open science discussed and positioned? Who adopted or contributed to open science practices and how? How has the relationship between research and the public been affected by the opening of research?


While the coronavirus pandemic’s impacts have been largely negative, Covid-19 also served to challenge the way we carry out, communicate, and engage with science. In the first year of the pandemic, more research was shared openly, more preprints were posted, and we saw an explosion in the public communication of science, particularly in mainstream media. These changes have the potential to foster a more open and inclusive approach to research and scholarship and to bolster our capacity to face present and future societal challenges—but only if the changes persist beyond the pandemic.

To better understand the long-term impacts of this shift for a more resilient and informed society, the Value of Openness, Inclusion, Communication, and Engagement for Science in a Post-Pandemic World (VOICES) project seeks to investigate and share new empirical evidence of the value of opening science, to other scholars and to the public, during and beyond the pandemic. VOICES brings together a transnational team of scholars with expertise in open science, scholarly and science communication, and research impact, to understand, document, and measure how the new interplay between researchers, policymakers, science communicators, and the public have affected research, and the role of research in society. 

VOICES will examine research questions across and between national contexts, including the four countries represented by the research team (Brazil, Canada, Germany, and the UK). The project is funded by the Trans-Atlantic Platform Recovery, Renewal and Resilience in a Post-Pandemic World (RRR) Award—which includes contributions from Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in Canada, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) in Brazil, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the UK, and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in Germany.

Collaborators

Juan Pablo Alperin (PI), Germana Barata (Co-PI), Isabella Peters (Co-PI), Stephen Pinfield (Co-PI), Alice Fleerackers (Doctoral Student), Natascha Chtena (Postdoctoral Fellow), Monique Oliveira (Postdoctoral Fellow), Isabelle Dorsch (Postdoctoral Fellow), Melanie Benson Marshall (Postdoctoral Fellow)

Related Publications

Fleerackers, A., Chtena, N., Pinfield, S., Alperin, J. P., Barata, G., Oliveira, M., & Peters, I. (2023). Making science public: a review of journalists’ use of Open Science research [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]. F1000Research. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.133710.1 Download
Fleerackers, A., Chtena, N., Oliveira, M., Dorsch, I., Pinfield, S., & Alperin, J. P. (2023). Open data journalism: A narrative synthesis of how, when, and why data journalists use open data sources. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/wh8jx Download
Lemke, S., Dorsch, I., & Peters, I. (2023, October 27). Post-pandemic changes in the adoption of OA models – a case study on Covid-19 and cancer research. METSTI 2023 Workshop: Workshop on Informetric, Scientometric, and Scientific and Technical Information Research (METSTI 2023), London, UK. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10555358 Download
Lemke, S., Dorsch, I., & Peters, I. (2023, October 27). Post-pandemic changes in the adoption of OA models - a case study on Covid-19 and cancer research. METSTI 2023 Workshop, London, UK. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10561588 Download
Dorsch, I., Lemke, S., & Peters, I. (2023). Analysis of “open access publishing characteristics” for COVID-19 and cancer publications in web of science. In W. Semar (Ed.), Nachhaltige Information – Information für Nachhaltigkeit. Tagungsband des 17 (pp. 387–392). Glückstadt: Verlag Werner Hülsbusch. https://doi.org/https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10009338 Download
Chtena, N., Alperin, J. P., Morales, E., Fleerackers, A., Dorsch, I., Pinfield, S., & Simard, M.-A. (2023). The neglect of equity and inclusion in open science policies of Europe and the Americas. SciELO Preprints. https://doi.org/10.1590/SciELOPreprints.7366
Fleerackers, A., Shores, K., Chtena, N., & Alperin, J. P. (2024). Unreviewed science in the news: The evolution of preprint media coverage from 2014-2021. Quantitative Science Studies, 1–40. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00282 Download
Marshall, M. B., Pinfield, S., Abbott, P., Cox, A., Alperin, J. P., Barata, G., Chtena, N., Dorsch, I., Fleerackers, A., Oliveira, M., & Peters, I. (2024). The impact of COVID-19 on the debate on open science: An analysis of expert opinion. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/xy874