Papers by Stefan Reichmann
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Dec 31, 2021
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Dec 5, 2022
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Jan 31, 2022
This deliverable presents a synthesis of findings from the ON-MERRIT project, including on issues... more This deliverable presents a synthesis of findings from the ON-MERRIT project, including on issues of relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Social Studies of Science
Scientific institutions have increasingly embraced formalized research data management strategies... more Scientific institutions have increasingly embraced formalized research data management strategies, which involve complex social practices of codifying the tacit dimensions of data practices. Several guidelines to facilitate these practices have been introduced in recent years, for example, the FAIR guiding principles. The aim of these practices is to foster transparency and reproducibility through ‘data sharing,’ the public release of data for unbounded reuse. However, a closer look suggests that many scientists’ practices of data release might be better described as what I call data handovers. These practices are not rooted in the lofty ideals of good scientific practice and global data reuse but in the more mundane necessities of research continuity, which have become more urgent in light of increasing academic mobility. The Austrian scientists interviewed for this study reinterpreted defining features of research data management – such as ensuring findability – as techniques for ...
Royal Society Open Science
Open Research aims to make research more accessible, transparent, reproducible, shared and collab... more Open Research aims to make research more accessible, transparent, reproducible, shared and collaborative. Doing so is meant to democratize and diversify access to knowledge and knowledge production, and ensure that research is useful outside of academic contexts. Increasing equity is therefore a key aim of the Open Research movement, yet mounting evidence demonstrates that the practices of Open Research are implemented in ways that undermine this. In response, we convened a diverse community of researchers, research managers and funders to co-create actionable recommendations for supporting the equitable implementation of Open Research. Using a co-creative modified Delphi method, we generated consensus-driven recommendations that address three key problem areas: the resource-intensive nature of Open Research, the high cost of article processing charges, and obstructive reward and recognition practices at funders and research institutions that undermine the implementation of Open Res...
Proponents of Open Research often assert that it can support evidence-based policy-making by maki... more Proponents of Open Research often assert that it can support evidence-based policy-making by making scientific outputs more readily available to policy-makers and other policy actors, yet there is little empirical work to support or deny this claim. This paper fills this void by reporting the results of a qualitative study with researchers who regularly work at the science-policy interface. We found that there is little evidence that Open Research products, namely Open Access and open data, which aim at increasing access and transparency, are useful in integrating science into policy-making. Instead, we found that the cognitive accessibility of research outputs is more important than their physical accessibility, and that inclusive and collaborative Open Research processes, like upstream engagement, co-creation and Citizen Science, are most effective at doing so.
Open Science holds the promise to make scientific endeavours more inclusive, participatory, under... more Open Science holds the promise to make scientific endeavours more inclusive, participatory, understandable, accessible and re-usable for large audiences. However, making processes open will not <i>per se</i> drive wide reuse or participation unless also accompanied by the capacity (in terms of knowledge, skills, financial resources, technological readiness and motivation) to do so. These capacities vary considerably across regions, institutions and demographics. Those advantaged by such factors will remain potentially privileged, putting Open Science's agenda of inclusivity at risk of propagating conditions of 'cumulative advantage'. With this paper, we systematically scope existing research addressing the question: 'What evidence and discourse exists in the literature about the ways in which dynamics and structures of inequality could persist or be exacerbated in the transition to Open Science, across disciplines, regions and demographics?' Aiming to...
Open Science holds the promise to make scientific endeavours more inclusive, participatory, under... more Open Science holds the promise to make scientific endeavours more inclusive, participatory, understandable, accessible and re-usable for large audiences. However, making processes open will not <i>per se</i> drive wide reuse or participation unless also accompanied by the capacity (in terms of knowledge, skills, financial resources, technological readiness and motivation) to do so. These capacities vary considerably across regions, institutions and demographics. Those advantaged by such factors will remain potentially privileged, putting Open Science's agenda of inclusivity at risk of propagating conditions of 'cumulative advantage'. With this paper, we systematically scope existing research addressing the question: 'What evidence and discourse exists in the literature about the ways in which dynamics and structures of inequality could persist or be exacerbated in the transition to Open Science, across disciplines, regions and demographics?' Aiming to...
This handbook aims to support higher education institutions with the integration of FAIR-related ... more This handbook aims to support higher education institutions with the integration of FAIR-related content in their curricula and teaching. It was written and edited by a group of about 40 collaborators in a series of six book sprint events that took place between 1 and 10 June 2021. The document provides practical material, such as competence profiles, learning outcomes and lesson plans, and supporting information. It incorporates community feedback received during the public consultation which ran from 27 July to 12 September 2021.
Part of the current enthusiasm about Open Science stems from its promises to reform scientific pr... more Part of the current enthusiasm about Open Science stems from its promises to reform scientific practicein service of the common good, to ensure that scientific outputs will be found and reused more easily,and to enhance scientific impact on policy and society. With this article, we question this optimism byanalysing the potential for Open Science practices to enhance research uptake at the science-policyinterface. Science advice is critical to help policy makers make informed decisions. Likewise, someinterpretations of Open Science hold that making research processes and outputs more transparent andaccessible will also enhance uptake of results by policy and society at large. However, we argue thatthis hope is based on an unjustifiably simplistic understanding of the science-policy interface that leaveskey terms (“impact”, “uptake”) undefined. We show that this understanding – based upon linear modelsof research uptake – likewise grounds the influential "evidence-policy gap&quo...
<p>The nascent field of data science and the expansion of the higher education sector share... more <p>The nascent field of data science and the expansion of the higher education sector share surprising affinities. The emergence of the "entrepreneurial university" has brought increasing differentiation of the work roles of academics in addition to increased mobility and, for some, precarity. At the same time, researchers are dealing with unprecedented amounts of data. The present article describes how policies and infrastructures implemented to support researchers with data curation tasks might be repurposed by research administrators to tackle problems of academic mobility rooted in increasing precarity of non-tenured research staff. Findings suggest that the organizational benefit of research data management (RDM) is not increased efficiency or reusability of research, but rather increased control over data left behind by non-tenured staff. Recent interest in data mobility needs to be understood by reference to increased researcher mobility. While the view of data as context-independent evidence has been challenged by reference to the investments necessary to mobilize data as evidence in the first place, the material presented here suggests that RDM is repurposed by universities as a strategy to manage, not data, but rather increasing rates of staff turnover. The mobility of data producers and the immobility of data are frequently in tension. Handing over data is problematic irrespective of domain, data type, and funding source. The term "high-throughput university" is introduced in opposition to "high-throughput" data production techniques to suggest that findability and reusability of data need to be recontextualized with reference to increased academic mobility.</p>
Data detailing literature search used for "Dynamics of Cumulative Advantage and Threats to E... more Data detailing literature search used for "Dynamics of Cumulative Advantage and Threats to Equity in Open Science - A Scoping Review" Contains: ON-MERRIT_scoping_review_all_literature: Excel spreadsheet containing all literature scoped in the study ON-MERRIT_scoping_review_database_literature: Excel spreadsheet containing all literature found via database search (WoS and Scopus) scoped in the study
This document reports on the research conducted under Task 6.1 "Investigating institutional ... more 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 ...
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Papers by Stefan Reichmann