Introducing the Principles for Citizen Science at UCL

By Kirsty, on 14 April 2025

Guest post by Sheetal Saujani, Citizen Science Coordinator in the Office for Open Science & Scholarship

Citizen science is a powerful and evolving way to conduct research, bringing together researchers and the public to advance knowledge and create real-world impact. At UCL, we’re committed to supporting ethical, inclusive, and high-quality citizen science.

To support this growing area of research, we are pleased to introduce the Principles for Citizen Science at UCL, a framework designed to guide best practices and meaningful collaboration across UCL and beyond.

Where did the Principles come from?

Our journey began with a simple question: What does citizen science look like across UCL?

We mapped existing projects across UCL and found many departments already involved in citizen science, even if they didn’t call it that. Conversations with project leads helped us to identify great practices, what support is needed and how to help more people get involved in citizen science. These conversations, in conjunction with UCL’s Citizen Science Working Group, helped shape UCL’s broad definition of citizen science (encompassing a diverse range of activities and practices) and informed the development of the Principles, a shared foundation for project leads, researchers, and citizen scientists working together.

Rooted in UCL’s inclusive approach to citizen science, the Principles are also informed by the ECSA (European Citizen Science Association) Ten Principles of Citizen Science, adapted to reflect UCL’s research culture and values.

What do the Principles cover?

The Principles for Citizen Science at UCL provide practical guidance primarily for anyone designing or participating in a citizen science project. They focus on key areas such as:

• Citizen scientists – Ensuring meaningful participation and recognition of contributions.
• Communication – Promoting open, clear and respectful dialogue between everyone.
• Data quality and ethics – Ensuring robust, responsible approaches to data collection, analysis, and sharing.
• Inclusivity and accessibility – Creating opportunities for everyone to get involved, regardless of background or experience.

Why do they matter?

Citizen science at UCL is more than a research method; it’s a way to connect knowledge with communities and expand the impact of our work.

The Principles aim to:

• Help project leads and citizen scientists work more effectively together.
• Support ethical and responsible research practices.
• Encourage wider participation and access.
• Increase the visibility and influence of citizen science across different disciplines.

By embedding these principles into projects, we can ensure that citizen-led research contributes to both academic excellence and societal benefit at UCL and beyond.

Use the Principles as a living framework

UCL’s Principles for Citizen Science aren’t just a checklist, they’re a flexible guide in the principles of co-creation, quality and inclusivity to use throughout your project journey. Use them to shape a project from idea to delivery and return to them often as your work evolves.

Explore and reach out to us!

We encourage all UCL researchers, project leads, staff, students, and citizen scientists to explore and adopt the Principles for Citizen Science at UCL in their work. Whether you’re starting a new project or refining an existing one, the Principles are here to support you.

If you’d like to learn more or discuss how these Principles can support your work, reach out to us as we would love to hear from you!

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Ethics of Open Science: Science as Activism

By Kirsty, on 2 April 2025

Guest post by Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, building on his captivating presentation in Session 2 of the UCL Open Science Conference 2024.

Many scientists accept a duty of ensuring that their science is used to help society. When we are publicly funded, we feel that we owe it to the public to offer Open Science for contributing to policy and action.

Some scientists take it a step further. Rather than merely making their science available for others to use, they interpret it for themselves to seek specific policies and actions. Open Science becomes a conduit for the scientist to become an activist. Positives and negatives emerge, as shown by the science of urban exploration and of climate change.

Urban exploration

‘Urban exploration’ (urbex), ‘place-hacking’, and ‘recreational trespass’ refer to people accessing infrastructure which is off-limits to the public, such as closed train stations, incomplete buildings, and utility systems. As per the third name, it sometimes involves trespassing and it is frequently dangerous, since sites are typically closed off for safety and security reasons.

Urbex research does not need to involve the infrastructure directly, perhaps through reviewing existing material or interviewing off-site. It can, though, involve participating in accessing the off-limits sites for documenting experiences through autoethnography or participant-observer. As such, the urbex researcher could be breaking the law. In 2014, one researcher was granted a conditional discharge, 20 months after being arrested for involvement in urbex while researching it.

Open Science for urbex research has its supporters and detractors. Those stating the importance of the work and publicising it point to the excitement of learning about and documenting a city’s undercurrents, creative viewing and interacting with urban environments, the act of bringing sequestered spaces to the public while challenging authoritarianism, the need to identify security lapses, and making friends. Many insist on full safety measures, even while trespassing.

Detractors explain that private property is private and that significant dangers exist. People have died. Rescues and body recoveries put others at risk. Urbex science might be legitimate, particularly to promote academic freedom, but it should neither be glorified nor encourage foolhardiness.

This situation is not two mutually exclusive sides. Rather, different people prefer different balances. Urbex Open Science as activism can be safe, legal, and fun—also as a social or solo hobby. Thrill-seekers for social media influence and income would be among the most troublesome and the least scientific.

Figure 1: Unfinished and abandoned buildings are subjects of ‘urbex’ research (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Climate everything?

Humanity is changing the Earth’s climate rapidly and substantively with major, deleterious impacts on society. Open Science on climate change has been instrumental in popularising why human-caused climate change is happening, its implications, how we could avert it, and actions to tackle its negative impacts.

Less clear is the penchant for some scientists to use Open Science to try to become self-appointed influencers and activists beyond their expertise. They can make grandiose public pronouncements on climate change science well outside their own work, even contradicting their colleagues’ published research. An example is an ocean physicist lamenting the UK missing its commitments on climate change’s Paris Agreement, despite the agreement being unable to meet its own targets, and then expressing concerns about “climate refugees” which legally cannot exist.

A meme distributed by some scientists states that cats kill more birds than wind turbines, yet no one tries to restrict cats! Aside from petitions and studies about restricting cats, the meme never explains how cats killing birds justifies wind turbines killing birds, particularly when kill-avoiding strategies exist. When a scientist’s social media postings are easily countered, it undermines efforts to suggest that scientists ought to be listened to regarding climate change.

Meanwhile, many scientists believe they can galvanise action by referring to “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” rather than to “climate change”. From the beginnings of this crisis/emergency framing, political concerns were raised about the phrasing. Now, evidence is available of the crisis/emergency wording leading to negative impacts for action.

In fact, scientist activism aiming to “climat-ify” everything leads to non-sensical phrasing. From “global weirding” to “climate chaos”, activist terminology can reveal a lack of understanding of the basics of climate science—such as climate, by definition, being mathematically chaotic. A more recent one is “climate obstruction”. When I asked how we could obstruct the climate since the climate always exists, I never received an answer.

Figure 2: James Hansen, climate scientist and activist (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Duty for accuracy and ethics

Scientists have a duty for accuracy and ethics, which Open Science should be used for. Fulfilling this duty contributes to credibility and clarity, rather than using Open Science to promote either subversive or populist material, simply for the sake of activism, without first checking its underlying science and the implications of publicising it. When applied appropriately, Open Science can and should support accurate and ethical activism.

Save the Date! Open Science & Scholarship festival 2025

By Kirsty, on 20 March 2025

The library teams at LSE and the Francis Crick institute and the UCL Office for Open Science & Scholarship are proud to announce the first collaborative Open Science & Scholarship Festival in London. 

The festival will be taking place from 2-6 of June and will include a mixture of in person and hybrid events across all three institutions as well as a range of sessions purely held online. We have an exciting programme in development for you, including:

• Open Research in the Age of Populism
  Political shifts around the world, from the Trump administration in the US to Meloni’s government in Italy, are making it more important than ever to have reliable research freely available. However, these governments are also making it more risky to be a researcher openly sharing the results of research in many countries and disciplines. Alongside the political censorship of research in some countries there are also changes to research funding, research being misrepresented and used to spread misinformation online, and concerns about the stability of open research infrastructure which is funded by the state. In these circumstances we will consider the value of open knowledge, the responsibilities of individual researchers and institutions to be open and how you can protect yourself when making your research openly available?
• How open is possible, how closed is necessary? Navigating data sharing whilst working with personal data
  In the interests of transparency and research integrity, researchers are encouraged to open up more of their research process, including sharing data. However, for researchers working with personal data, including interview and medical data, there are important considerations for sharing. This event will bring together researchers from a range of disciplines to share their experiences and strategies for open research when working with personal data.
  The panel will discuss if and how this type of data can be made openly available, the balance between the work involved to anonymise data and benefits to research and society for making it available, and consider the legal frameworks researchers are working within in the UK.
• Authorship in the era of AI 
  With the rapid growth of AI tools over the past three years, there has been a corresponding rise in the number of academics and students using them in their own writing. While it is generally agreed that we still expect people to be the “authors” of their work, deciding how to interpret that is often a nuanced and subjective decision by the writer. This panel discussion will look at how we think about “authorship” for AI-assisted writing – what are these tools used for in different contexts? Where might readers and publishers draw their own lines as to what is still someone’s own work? And how might we see this develop over time?
• Creativity in research and engagement
  A session of making, sharing and storytelling. Speakers from across UCL share how they use creative methods to enrich their research, engage with people, and share their learning. Join us to discuss these methods, the benefits of creativity, and try creating a visual output based on your own work.   
  
• Professionalising data, software, and infrastructure support to transform open science
  Workshop in development where researchers and research technology professionals can come together to discuss challenges and opportunities to support research. This session will focus on skills and training needed in creating a culture of Open Science.
• Open Methods with Protocols.io
  Join the Francis Crick Institute and Protocols.io to talk about making your lab protocols and article methods sections open access. Improve replicability, re-use and gain credit for all those hours you spent at the bench. The session is open to all and will involve discussions of the value of open protocols alongside hands on training on how to use the protocols.io platform.
• Should reproducibility be the aim for open qualitative research? Researchers’ perspectives
  Reproducibility has been touted among quantitative researchers as a necessary step to make studies rigorous. To determine reproducibility, whether the same analyses of the same data produce the same results, the raw data and code must be accessible to other researchers. Qualitative researchers have also begun to consider making their data open too. However, where the analyses of these data do not involve quantification and statistical analysis, it is difficult to see how such analysis processes could be reproducible. Furthermore, for researchers in fields where cultural knowledge plays a key role in the analysis of qualitative data, openness of such data may invite misrepresentation by re-use of the data by researchers unfamiliar with the cultural and social context in which it was produced.  This event asks whether reproducibility should be the aim for open qualitative data, and if not, why should researchers make their qualitative data open and what are the other methods used to establish rigour and integrity in research? 

We are also developing sessions about:

• The Big Deal for Diamond Journals
• A networking coffee morning
• Openness and Engagement with Special Collections and Archives

More information will be shared and booking will be available as soon as we can, so watch this space and follow us on BlueSky and LinkedIn for updates!

Ethics of Open Science: Navigating Scientific Disagreements

By Kirsty, on 6 March 2025

Guest post by Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, building on his captivating presentation in Session 2 of the UCL Open Science Conference 2024.

Open Science reveals scientific disagreements to the public, with advantages and disadvantages. Opportunities emerge to demonstrate the scientific process and techniques for sifting through diverging ideas and evidence. Conversely, disagreements can become personal, obscuring science, scientific methods, and understandable disagreements due to unknowns, uncertainties, and personality clashes. Volcanology and climate change illustrate.

Volcanology

During 1976, a volcano rumbled on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe which is part of France. Volcanologists travelled there to assess the situation leading to public spats between those who were convinced that a catastrophic eruption was likely and those who were unconcerned, indicating that plenty of time would be available for evacuating people if dangers worsened. The authorities decided to evacuate more than 73,000 people, permitting them to return home more than three months later when the volcano quieted down without having had a major eruption.

Aside from the evacuation’s cost and the possible cost of a major eruption without an evacuation, volcanologists debated for years afterwards how everyone could have dealt better with the science, the disagreements, and the publicity. Open Science could support all scientific viewpoints being publicly available as well as how this science could be and is used for decision making, including navigating disagreements. It might mean that those who shout loudest are heard most, plus media can sell their wares by amplifying the most melodramatic and doomerist voices—a pattern also seen with climate change.

Insults and personality clashes can mask legitimate scientific disagreements. For Guadeloupe, in one commentary responding to intertwined scientific differences and personal attacks, the volcanologist unhelpfully suggests their colleagues’ lack of ‘emotional stability’ as part of numerous, well-evidenced scientific points. In a warning prescient for the next example, this scientist indicates difficulties if Open Science means conferring credibility to ‘scientists who have specialized in another field that has little or no bearing on [the topic under discussion], and would-be scientists with no qualification in any scientific field whatever’.

Figure 1: Chile’s Osorno volcano (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Climate change, tropical cyclones, and anthropologists

Tropical cyclones are the collective term for hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones. The current scientific consensus (which can change) is that due to human-caused climate change, tropical cyclone frequency is decreasing while intensity is increasing. On occasion, anthropologists have stated categorically that tropical cyclone numbers are going up due to human-caused climate change.

I responded to a few of these statements with the current scientific consensus, including foundational papers. This response annoyed the anthropologists even though they have never conducted research on this topic. I offered to discuss the papers I mentioned, an offer not accepted.

There is a clear scientific disagreement between climate change scientists and some anthropologists regarding projected tropical cyclone trends under human-caused climate change. If these anthropologists publish their unevidenced viewpoint as Open Science, it offers fodder to the industries undermining climate change science and preventing action on human-caused climate change. They can point to scientists disputing the consensus of climate change science and then foment further uncertainty and scepticism about climate change projections.

One challenge is avoiding censorship of, or shutting down scientific discussions with, the anthropologists who do not accept climate change science’s conclusions. It is a tricky balance between permitting Open Science across disciplines, including to connect disciplines, and not fostering or promoting scientific misinformation.

Figure 2: Presenting tropical cyclone observations (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Caution, care, and balance

Balance is important between having scientific discussions in the open and avoiding scientists levelling personal attacks at each other or spreading incorrect science, both of which harm all science. Some journals use an open peer review process in which the submitted article, the reviews, the response to the reviews, all subsequent reviews and responses, and the editorial decision are freely available online. A drawback is that submitted manuscripts are cited as being credible, including those declined for publication. Some journals identify authors and reviewers to each other, which can reduce snide remarks while increasing possibilities for retribution against negative reviews.

Even publicly calling out bullying does not necessarily diminish bullying. Last year, after I privately raised concerns about personal attacks against me on an anthropology email list due to a climate change posting I made, I was called “unwell” and “unhinged” in private emails which were forwarded to me. When I examined the anthropology organisation’s policies on bullying and silencing, I found them lacking. I publicised my results. The leaders not only removed me from the email list against the email list’s own policies, but they also refused to communicate with me. That is, these anthropologists (who are meant to be experts in inter-cultural communication) bullied and silenced me because I called out bullying and silencing.

Awareness of the opportunities and perils of Open Science for navigating scientific disagreements can indicate balanced pathways for focusing on science rather than on personalities. Irrespective, caution and care can struggle to overcome entirely the fact that scientists are human beings with personalities, some of whom are ardently opposed to caution, care, and disagreeing well.

Announcing: UCL’s first Replication Games

By Kirsty, on 17 February 2025

Registrations are now open for UCL’s first Replication Games, organised by the Office for Open Science & Scholarship and UCL’s UKRN local network chapter. The event will be run by the Institute for Replication (I4R), and it is supported by a Research Culture Seed Grant.

The Replication Games is a one-day event that brings together researchers to collaborate on reproducing and replicating papers published in highly regarded journals. Researchers participating in the Replication Games will join a small team of 3-5 members with similar research interests. Teams verify the reproducibility of a paper using its replication package. They may conduct sensitivity analysis, employing different procedures than the original investigators.  Teams may also recode the study using the raw or intermediate data or implement novel analyses with new data. More information can be found on I4R’s Website.

Teams will be guided in all activities by Derek Mikola, an experienced facilitator from the I4R. After the event, teams are encouraged to document their work in a report that will be published on the website of the I4R. Participants are also eligible to be granted co-authorship in a meta-paper that combines a large number of replications.

This event takes place in person. Lunch and afternoon snacks are provided.

Who are we inviting to register?

Registration is on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis. We invite MRes students, doctoral students and researchers, post-docs, and faculty members at UCL to apply. Although students and scholars from all disciplines can apply, we hope to attract especially those working in the social sciences and humanities.

Participants must be confident using at least one of the following: R, Python, Stata, or Matlab.

Papers available for replication are listed on the I4R website. Prospective participants are asked to review this list to ensure that at least one paper aligns with their research interests.

How to apply?

Please complete this short form: https://forms.office.com/e/WEUUKH2BvA

Timeline and Procedure

• 15 March 25 – registrations close
• 31 March 25 – notification of outcomes and teams
• 7 April 25,  1pm – Mandatory Teams call with the I4R (online)
• 25 April 25, 9am-5pm – Replication Games (at UCL’s Bloomsbury Campus)

Please note that participants are expected to attend the full day.

Contact

If you have any questions, please contact Sandy Schumann (s.schumann@ucl.ac.uk)

Archiving beyond data at UCL

By Kirsty, on 14 February 2025

Article written by Dr Christiana McMahon, UCL Research Data Management Team

As we discussed in the blog post on Wednesday, there are ways to share and be transparent about your research without compromising ethical or legal requirements. Did you know that the UCL Research Data Repository (RDR) is a great way for staff and research students to archive, preserve, promote and publish these outputs created as part of the research process?

Have you ever been asked to archive other types of research outputs? UCL has RPS for articles, but did you know that you can also archive and share other outputs of research? Be it a whole dataset, or other types of material supporting your research such as photos, models, software, presentation slides, your Data Management Plan, even a poster.

By using the RDR, you can get a permanent identifier for your work in the form of a DOI and add it to your ORCID. Additionally, as you publish items in the UCL Research Data Repository, these are automatically collated together on a data repository webpage just for you.

With over 580,000 downloads globally, we have published over 950 research outputs that have been viewed in over 180 countries, so start publishing today!

• For more information contact: researchdatarepository@ucl.ac.uk.
• Access the full online catalogue: https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/

Need to write a data management plan?

By Kirsty, on 13 February 2025

Article written by Dr Christiana McMahon, UCL Research Data Management Team

Writing a data management plan can be difficult task to approach at the best of times. There are lots of things to consider, not just going through your project in detail, you may also need to consider external funding agency requirements, UCL’s research data expectations plus the FAIR data principles, well… advice from the Research Data Support Officers might be just what you need!

There is still plenty of time to get registered for one of the upcoming courses on how to write a data management plan! Book your place online today.

Data management plans (DMPs) describe your data management and sharing activities across the research data lifecycle and are a valuable document for you to refer to throughout your research project that can help you structure and protect your data for the long term. A fully completed DMP is usually 1-3 pages in length and can even be published as an output of your research. We recommend that they are written at the start of the research and are regularly reviewed and updated over the course of your research.

For more information on data management planning and how to get in touch with the team, visit our website.

Open research…yes; Open evidence…no?

By Kirsty, on 12 February 2025

Article written by Dr Christiana McMahon, UCL Research Data Management Team

“I want to share my data, but I can’t because…” is something we hear often.

Sometimes, it’s not possible to share evidence openly and that’s okay. Let’s take a closer look at what we can do to promote research findings and foster transparency and confidence in the research process

At UCL, staff and students are actively encouraged to share their research outputs openly with the wider academic and public communities. However, openly sharing the research evidence which underpins published findings might not always be possible as there could be ethical, legal or commercial reasons prohibiting you from doing so. Hence the phrase, “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”.

While you may not be able to share your data as an output, there are many other considerations. Can you be transparent about your processes? Can you tell others how you did the research so that they can replicate your methods? Have you considered ways to anonymise or share derived subsets of your data? What about your publications associated with your research, can they be open?

There are a huge amount of options available to you. Check out the Office for Open Science and Scholarship website for advice and support on engaging with open research principles even when the research evidence cannot be made publicly accessible.

Plus, easily access different teams across UCL helping you to engage with open research:

• Open Access,
• Research Data Management,
• UCL Press,
• Metrics and Bibliometrics,
• Transparency and Reproducibility,
• Digital Collections,
• Citizen Science,
• Co-Production and Public Engagement,
• Compliance and Assurance,
• and Copyright.

Whose data is it anyway? The importance of Information Governance in Research

By Kirsty, on 11 February 2025

Guest post by Preeti Matharu, Jack Hindley, Victor Olago, Angharad Green (ARC Research Data Stewards), in celebration of International Love Data Week 2025

Research data is a valuable yet vulnerable asset. Research data is a valuable yet vulnerable asset. Researchers collect and analyse large amounts of personal and sensitive data ranging from health records to survey responses, and this raises an important question – whose data is it anyway?

If data involve human subjects, then participants are the original owners of their personal data. They grant permission to researchers to collect and use their data through informed consent. Therefore, responsibility for managing and protecting their data, in line with legal, regulatory, ethical requirements, and policies lie with researchers and their institution. Hence, maintaining a balance between participant rights and researcher needs.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the UK and EU, participants have the right to access, update and request deletion of their data, whilst researchers must comply with the law to ensure research integrity. However, under the Data Protection Act, research data processed in the public interest must be retained irrespective of participant rights, including the rights to erase, access and rectify. UCL must uphold this requirement while ensuring participant confidentiality is not compromised.

Information governance consists of policies, procedures and processes adopted by UCL to ensure research data is managed securely and complies with legal and operational requirements.

Support for information governance in research is now provided by Data Stewards within ARC RDM IG. That’s a long acronym, let’s break it down.

• ARC: Advanced Research Computing – UCL’s research innovative centre and provides 1. Secure digital infrastructure and 2. Teaching software.
• RDM: Research Data Management – assist researchers with data management.
• IG: Information governance – advise researchers on compliance for managing sensitive data.

Data Stewards – we support researchers with data management throughout the research study, provide guidance on data security awareness training, data security requirements for projects, and compliance with legal and regulatory standards, encompassing the Five Safes Framework principles. Additionally, we advise on sensitive data storage options, such as a Trusted Research Environment (TRE) or the Data Safe Haven (DSH).

Furthermore, we emphasise the importance of maintaining up-to-date and relevant documentation and provide guidance on FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles.

As stated above, data can be vulnerable. UCL must implement strong security controls including encryption, access control and authentication, to protect sensitive data, such as personal health data and intellectual property. Sensitive data refers to data whose unauthorised disclosure could cause potential harm to participants or UCL.

UCL’s Information Security Management System (ISMS) is a systematic approach to managing sensitive research data to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability. It is a risk management process involving people, processes and IT systems. The key components include information management policy, identifying and assessing risks, implementing security controls to mitigate identified risks, training users and continuous monitoring. The ISMS is crucial in research:

1. It protects sensitive data; without stringent security measures, data is at risk of being accessed by unauthorised individuals leading to potential theft.
2. It ensures legal and regulatory compliance i.e. GDPR and UCL policies. Non-compliance results in hefty fines, legal action and reputational damage.
3. Research ethics demand participant data is handled with confidentiality. The ISMS ensures data management practices, data anonymisation, and controlled access whilst reinforcing ethical responsibility.
4. It reduces the risk of phishing attacks and ransomware.
5. It ensures data integrity and reliability – tampered or corrupted data can lead to invalid research and waste of resources.

UCL practices for Information Governance in research:

• Data security – Use encrypted storage, access controls and secure platforms like TRE or DSH.
• Ethical responsibility – Data protection office and Ethics obtain informed consent from participants and ensure they fully understand how their data will be used.
• Data Security Awareness training – Ensure researchers have completed and regularly review their training.
• Information Security Group – Conduct regular audits, identify vulnerabilities and mitigate potential risks.
• Contract Services – Review all research related contracts.

In response to the question, whose data is it anyway? Data may be generated by participants, but the overall responsibility to use, process, protect, ethically manage lies upon the researchers and UCL. Additionally, beyond compliance and good information governance, it is about ensuring research integrity and safeguarding the participants who make research possible.

It’s International Love Data Week 2025!

By Kirsty, on 10 February 2025

In true UCL tradition, we kickstart the week with the annual Research Data Management review so take a look at our poster and see what we’ve been doing in the Library!