2023 Impact Report | Center for Open Science

The celebration of a decade-long journey for the Center for Open Science (COS) marks a moment to reflect on the pursuit of research integrity and openness. As you’ll see in COS’s 2023 Impact Report, the progress to advance open science practices globally is substantial.

That progress would not be possible without the collective action and accomplishments of change agents across the social system of science. This includes individual researchers improving their own research practices, reformers advocating for change in their research communities, funders experimenting with new models to support openness, institutions changing norms, service providers offering tools and training, and policymakers developing new expectations and standards. These individuals and groups fueled the mission of increasing openness, integrity, and reproducibility in research.

While we celebrate the progress, we simultaneously recognize that open science is far from being the standard. As COS enters its second decade, we express our gratitude for the support and partnership of so many others in working to improve the research culture and accelerate discovery.

Thanks for your support and action to make science more open!

Brian Nosek
Executive Director
Center for Open Science

George Banks
Board Chair
Center for Open Science

Science Works Better in the Open

Strategy for Culture Change

COS’s Theory of Change recognizes that academic research is a social system, and that starting and scaling behavior change requires a systems-based intervention strategy. That means that every organization and participant in the research culture is an agent of stasis or change. And, to succeed in aligning scholarly practices with scholarly values, we must solve the coordination problem and ultimately activate everyone. But, no realistic strategy for behavior change can expect to activate everyone all at once.

COS’s strategy is to catalyze innovators and early adopters as the beachhead for change in a scholarly community by providing tools to make it possible to do the new behaviors. Then, making early adopters’ behavior visible and aspirational initiates changing community norms about how science should be done. That, combined with training and ensuring that the behaviors are fit for purpose, brings the behaviors into the mainstream. To scale and sustain those emerging norms, publishers, funders, and institutions align their incentives and policies so that researchers are rewarded and ultimately required to do the behaviors.

1. Make it Possible

The open-source Open Science Framework (OSF) makes it possible for researchers to improve rigor, transparency, and sharing of all their work across the research lifecycle.

2. Make it Easy

OSF is constantly evolving with user-centered product development to integrate into researchers' daily workflows. Training and customization ensures that the tools are fit-for-purpose for all kinds of research.

3. Make it Normative

Grassroots organizing activates champions to adopt new practices and engage their community. Targeted communications such as badges make their new behaviors visible to others.

4. Make it Rewarding

Journals and funders to realign incentives with Rigor and Transparency Initiatives using Registered Reports, a publishing format where peer review happens prior to data collection.

5. Make it Required

The Transparency and Openenss Promotion (TOP) Guidelines provide and promote a policy framework for aligning values, incentives, and policies for journals, funders, and institutions.