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The Future Of…Open Science

Dot Connector Studio
What’s Next Health
Published in
10 min readAug 1, 2024

Welcome to our What’s Next Health space called “The Future Of…” Here, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) grantees, partners, and staff explore approaches to engage with the future and how practices and technologies key to health equity might evolve over the next decade or century.

Today, we’ll hear from the team at foresight and strategy firm Dot Connector Studio, which has been tracking conversations about how practices in open science are evolving.

We are in a watershed moment for adoption of the practices of open science—an approach to research that fosters a “collaborative culture” through making scientific knowledge transparent, available, and accessible.

Here in the U.S., the White House declared that 2023 was the “Year of Open Science.” This built upon the release of “the Nelson memo” by the Office of Science and Technology Policy—which mandated that by the end of 2025, all research and data funded by any federal agency be made freely available immediately, with an eye toward providing equitable access. This sweeping requirement is poised to change the practices of both private funders and universities.

Successes of open science were on full display during COVID-19, as Chinese scientists initiated open sharing of data and genetic sequences of the virus early in 2020. Soon after, the White House and partner organizations developed the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19). These developments led to the rapid testing and development of vaccines, which is likely to have saved millions of lives.

Such triumphs show that the open science movement can lead to lifesaving discoveries. But as Dr. Brian Nosek, co-founder and director of the Center for Open Science and RWJF grantee, shared in a recent presentation to RWJF staff: “Trustworthiness of research is more about process than about outcome.”

Why open science?

When scientists make their findings and data—no matter how minor—available and transparent, this allows other researchers to replicate experiments, verify conclusions, and continue to move the whole field of inquiry forward with a more reliable basis for discovery. Access to research also supports novel interdisciplinary approaches, which can lead to new breakthroughs.

Health science as it currently exists is also built on a set of cultural gatekeeping practices that box out input and evidence from patients and communities struggling with disparities in treatment. Too often, traditional scientific practices are divorced from people’s actual needs. Bringing those most impacted by particular diseases or conditions in at the formative stage of research can help to counter bias, add nuance and context to evidence-gathering, and shape the questions being asked all along the research life cycle.

According to UNESCO: “Open science has the potential of making the scientific process more transparent, inclusive and democratic. It is increasingly recognized as a critical accelerator for the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and a true game changer in bridging the science, technology and innovation gaps and fulfilling the human right to science.”

Open Science core values and guiding principles. From: UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. Source: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379949/PDF/379949eng.pdf.multi

So, how can philanthropy better support the practices of open science and those who are working to apply them to questions of equity?

How research is evolving

The open science movement has been a topic of activism for a number of years. Proponents see it as a remedy for the privatization of science funding, the difficulty of sharing information across narrow discipline siloes, and the gap between the messy real world and the rigidity of the scientific process.

Those practicing open science are part of a broader set of reformers aiming to change the current landscape of scientific research practices. As Daniel Sarewitz writes in The New Atlantis: “Is science today just the latest candidate for inclusion in the growing list of failing institutions that seems to characterize our society? As with democratic politics, criminal justice, health care, and public education, science’s organization and culture are captured by a daunting, self-interested inertia, and a set of values reflecting a world that no longer exists.”

Critics of traditional scientific practices note the largely dysfunctional reward system focusing on novel, positive, and tidy outcomes, which has contributed to the current reproducibility crisis plaguing the scientific community. The open science movement aims to improve the current reward system and to move away from the academic “publish or perish” mentality. Embracing open science practices can help to address these challenges and catalyze movement toward more equitable futures.

Access beyond publishing

As funding for medical science health research increasingly comes from the private sector, which keeps research and data behind closed walls, the open science movement promotes widespread sharing. While the open science movement is often associated with open access to publications, it involves much more than that, encompassing “the entire cycle of the scientific process” across disciplines. The scope of open science includes different practices throughout this cycle, from experimental design, to data collection and sharing, to publication, teaching, peer review of published findings, and beyond.

Principles of Open Science. From: Chakravorty et al. (2002), Open Science: Challenges, Possible Solutions and the Way Forward. Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43538-022-00104-2

Transparency and equity are especially important as algorithms are increasingly being deployed throughout scientific research. The data used to train these algorithms are vulnerable to biases that become embedded in research results. Such biases need to be continuously interrogated and rooted out to deter structural racism in the future.

A growing movement

The practices of open science have been expanding, with Nosek and the Center for Open Science (COS) serving as leaders in the space for the past decade. Working from a philosophy of helping research “be the best that it can be,” Nosek and COS bring together different stakeholders with the goal of improving transparency and knowledge production for the good of humanity.

COS is currently seeking to build upon previous work from the DARPA SCORE (Systematizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence) program, which explores whether algorithms can be trained to assess research preprints and articles for “replicability.” In other words—can machines predict whether researchers can repeat the results of published experiments? This work aims to advance understanding of how to streamline and scale reliable research.

Another leader in the field is Open Science Monitor, which tracks and maps macro-trends along with a number of drivers and barriers within open science. Open Science Monitor finds that “all trends clearly indicate progress: from open access to publications (considering the impact of embargo period on statistics) to open data (with limited progress) to open API, open hardware and citizen science. Every indicator and every trend show progress, even if slow.” PLOS recently introduced Open Science Indicators, which also find that indicators such as rates of data repository use, code sharing rates, and rates of preprints held steady or are rising.

However, while adoption of open science is trending upwards, the progress is often unequal and slow across professions and geographical regions. A recent study found key regional differences, with scientists in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia being the most willing to share their data.

Women are also more likely to serve as first authors within the open science movement, which “has a more collaborative structure and includes more explicit language reflecting communality and prosociality” than traditional scientific practices. Additionally, some disciplines lean more towards open science practices than others. For example, the American Psychological Association considers open science an “emerging trend.” Calls to open up research within professions and practice areas are growing, with examples in mental health, climate change and biodiversity (see the Open Climate Campaign), and artificial intelligence.

Roles for funders

Funders of research are positioned to influence how open it is. Private pharmaceutical research remains resistant, keeping the vast majority of publications behind paywalls, although some are sharing data through platforms such as Vivli and YODA. Meanwhile, academia has increasingly adopted open access policies—with nudges from funders including the Open Research Funders Group, of which RWJF is a member, and NIH—although resistance to broader open science practices remains.

Government and philanthropic funders have a role to play in the entire open science life cycle by including open science practices and principles as criteria for grantees—going further upstream from open data and open access materials to require that the entire research process be conducted out in the open.

Open science mirrors other movements to bring in the voices and lived experiences of those who have been structurally excluded. It could create an environment to support participatory and community-based research. Examples from researchers in other regions and professional groups have also applied foresight and futuring methodologies to advance the application of open science. Funders could play a role in helping make such methodologies jointly integrated.

Philanthropy can also make a difference by espousing the values of open science, especially when it comes to solving urgent public health crises. For example, funders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust urged the scientific publishing community to adopt open science practices during infectious disease outbreaks in 2016. Especially during a time of pressing global science challenges—including pandemics and climate change—the benefits of speedy publication and open sharing are significant.

Nosek has some helpful suggestions for funders: Support emerging communities of practice, develop transparency policies for grantees, experiment with funding models to promote innovation and rigor, support metascience (research on the research process) to evaluate what works, and help shape scholarly norms (through training, awards, etc.) toward transparency and reproducibility.

Proceeding with caution

Funders can also take steps to mitigate possible negative effects. Open science is not without its drawbacks and dissenters who raise valid concerns. Such practices could promote pseudo-science, spur misinformation, or generate muddled data due to misuse of AI. Some researchers purport a disconnect between the ideal and actual implementation of open science. Such practices may also intentionally or unintentionally perpetuate barriers for people from marginalized communities to contribute. What kind of stop gaps need to be in place to mitigate these risks?

Center for Open Science warns against “idealistic standards of openness that risks alienating people, especially those from marginalized communities.” For example, at the moment, making articles open access is predominantly the financial responsibility of the authors. Plus, those practicing open science have the potential to run into data sovereignty issues, in which communities and nations wish to retain control over data internally gathered, developed, and contributed during the research process. Nosek notes that funders can work together to address these issues by, for example, having policies that include “green” no-cost options for open access and data management planning requirements that include consideration of the communities providing or affected by the data.

As the field grows, philanthropy has an opportunity to work with scientific communities to adopt safeguards against these challenges and accelerate equitable knowledge and resource sharing.

Learn more:

Dot Connector Studio is a Philadelphia-based strategy and foresight firm. Founder and Executive Director Jessica Clark previously served as RWJF’s futurist in residence. Dot Connector Studio’s researchers Jenna Rines and Katie Donnelly co-authored this piece. The views expressed are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Science
Health
Academic Research
Public Health
Philanthropy

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Dot Connector Studio
What’s Next Health

Written by Dot Connector Studio

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Dot Connector Studio is a cultural strategy and foresight firm based in Philadelphia.

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