We are delighted to be able to finally launch the full programme for the Open Science & Scholarship Festival 2025 in collaboration with LSE and the Francis Crick Institute.

The festival will run from the 2-6th of June and includes and exciting array of sessions including creative workshops, informal networking, case studies, online and in person panel discussions and technology demonstrations.

Download the full programme or keep scrolling for all the booking links below!

Monday 2 June

Open Methods with Protocols.io

In person – Francis Crick Institute
9.15am-12noon

This workshop at the Open Science & Scholarship Festival 2025 will introduce you to the benefits of publishing your methods and protocols as a separate & open access output. The workshop is open to all, but may be of particular interest to scientific lab researchers and staff: PGRs, Postdoc, Research Assistants, Technicians etc.

The session will include:

• General principles of Open Methods: Who, What, When, Why?
• An introduction to Protocols.io as a way of publishing your methods and protocols
• A workshop with Protocols.io where you can try out the system and get immediate answers to your questions from the experts.

Register your place

Creativity in research and engagement – In Person

In person – UCL East campus
2-4pm

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.

Register your place

Tuesday 3 June

Co-producing research with Special Collections: Prejudice and Power case study

Online only
10-11.30am

Join UCL Special Collections for a session exploring co-creation as a tool to engage with rare book and archive collections.
This session will focus on the practitioner experience of collaborating with communities using rare collections. The core example will be the recent Prejudice in Power project, that consisted
of a range of co-creation, community and academic initiatives that focussed on our holdings to respond to the university’s historic role in promoting eugenics. We will also discuss wider co-creation activity in UCL Special Collections, the lessons we have learnt and how we are embedding them into future practice.

Register your place

Scaling up Diamond Open Access Journals

Online only
2-3.30pm

Diamond open access (OA) is championed as a more open, equitable and inclusive, community-driven journal publishing model, especially when compared against other commercially owned, author pay and subscription models. Additionally, demand for not-for-profit open access journal publishing is rapidly growing amongst academics and funders, however, there is an acute lack of capacity and funding for journals to sustainably meet this demand. There are many barriers to solving these complex challenges, but one new initiative called the Open Journals Collective aims to disrupt the current landscape by offering a more equitable, sustainable and alternative solution to the traditional and established payment structures.

During the session we will hear from the conveners of the collective to learn more about why and how it came to light, what it offers and why it is needed. We will hear about the experiences of a library / institution with various OA journal models including their interactions with commercial publishers, as well as perspectives from a journal Editor who, alongside the journal board, resigned from a subscription journal and successfully launched a new and competing diamond open access journal.

Speakers:

• Caroline Edwards, Executive Director, Open Library of Humanities and Senior Lecturer in Modern & Contemporary Literature, Birkbeck, University of London, UK.
• Chris Banks, Consultant, Community Trust Co-Chair, Honorary Fellow, & Retired Library Director.
• Arash Abizadeh, R.B. Angus Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, McGill University, Canada, and Associate Editor of Free & Equal: A Journal of Ethics and Public Affairs.
• Ian Caswell, Journals Manager, UCL Press

Register your place

Wednesday 4 June

Should reproducibility be the aim for open qualitative research? Researchers’ perspectives

Hybrid: LSE campus and Online
10-11am

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?

Co-Chairs:

• Dr Matteo Galizzi, Associate Professor of Behavioural Science, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE
• Dr Sandy Schumann, Lecturer in Security and Crime Science, Dept of Security and Crime Science, University College London

Panel:

• Kirsty Wallis, Head of Research Liaison, Office for Open Science and Scholarship; and PhD Student, University College London
• Dr Annayah Prosser, Assistant Professor, Centre for Business, Organisations and Society (CBOS), University of Bath

• Dr Madeleine Pownall, Associate Professor, School of Psychology, University of Leeds

• Dr Matthew Hanchard, Research Fellow, School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations, University of Sheffield

Register your place

How open is possible, how closed is necessary? Navigating data sharing whilst working with personal data

Hybrid: UCL Bloomsbury and Online
1 – 2pm

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.

Chair:

Dr Douglas Gray, Head of Human Research Governance, the Francis Crick Institute

Panel:

• Dr Stella Tsoli, Research Officer, LSE Health Inequalities Lab
• Professor Gabriella Vigliocco, Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, UCL

Register your place

Thursday 5 June

Open Research in the Age of Populism

Online only
4-5pm

Political shifts around the world, from the Trump administration in the US to Orban’s government in Hungary, 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?

Chair:
Jason Mckenzie Alexander, Professor of Philosophy at LSE and author of The Open Society as an Enemy

Panel:

• Martin Eve is Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London and Technical Lead of Knowledge Commons at MESH Research, Michigan State University, and co-founder of the non-profit open access journals publisher, Open Library of the Humanities.
• Frances Pinter is a Visiting Fellow at LSE and has had an impressive career in publishing latterly focused on open access publishing.
• Sara Rouhi has a long career in publishing and is a co-founder of the Declaration to Defend Research Against US Government Censorship 

Register your place

Friday 6 June

Authorship in the era of AI

Online only

2-4pm 

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?

Panel:

• Ayanna Prevatt-Goldstein – Head of the Academic Communications Centre at UCL
• Rachel Safer – Executive Publisher for Ethics & Integrity at OUP and a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
• Dhara Snowden – Head of the textbooks program at UCL Press

Register your place

Special event

UCL Press 10^th Anniversary Celebration

Online only
Tuesday 10^th June, 5-6.15pm

In the 10 years since UCL Press launched as the UK’s first fully open access university press, the open access landscape has changed considerably, with other new OA presses launching, the development of numerous OA initiatives supporting monographs, new funder mandates and a demonstrable shift in the perception of OA from a niche activity to a mainstream one. Impressive download figures demonstrate the global reach of OA books, with benefits for institutions, authors, policy makers and the wider public. This panel celebrates the progress with OA monographs during the last 10 years as well as considering the challenges to come. Featuring key actors in university press publishing, open access, libraries and funding, the panel will discuss how to drive the growth in OA monographs further, as well as addressing the financial crisis in the sector that is affecting universities’ funding priorities and the humanities and social sciences in particular, the backbone of monograph publishing.

Chair

Dr Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost, LCCOS, UCL, and CEO of UCL Press

Panellists

• Anthony Cond, President of the Association of University Presses and Chief Executive of Liverpool University Press
• Prof Margot Finn, Chair in Modern British History, UCL, and former President of the Royal Historical Society
• Dr Rupert Gatti, a Director of Open Book Publishers, Thoth Open Metadata and the Open Book Collective, actively engaged in the COPIM/OBF initiative and Fellow in Economics, Trinity College Cambridge
• Benjamin Meunier, University Librarian, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and lead for Open Books Hong Kong
• Stephanie Smith, Deputy Director of Policy, Russell Group of Universities
• Niamh Tumelty, Director of LSE Library and Managing Director of LSE Press

Register your place

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!

Here in the Office for Open Science & Scholarship we like to start every new year by taking a look back over the last and sharing our highlights with you.

In 2024 the Open Access Team facilitated the Gold open access publication of 3,963 papers. UCL Discovery continued to go from strength to strength, with over 53 million downloads. The publications repository now boasts over 185,000 open access items, including 24,900 theses, with over 15,500 uploads in the preceding twelve months.

The Research Data Management Team has had an equally productive year, publishing over 230 items in the data repository which has now exceeded 230,000 views and a similar number of downloads. They have reviewed over 30 data management plans and held classes for over 70 people, both online and in person. There are still seats available for term 2 that can be booked online.

Updates and publications

Across all of the teams that make up the Office we have published a whole host of documents and updates such as:

• New version of research data policy
• New-look RDR website
• Newly launched principles for Citizen Science
• Co-created UCL Principles of Authorship
• Open Science Case Studies

Our blog highlights

The blog has been super busy throughout the year with one of our personal highlights being the brilliant series of posts by Christine Daoutis, UCL’s Copyright Officer that looked at a range of issues around copyright in open science including a deep dive across three posts into Copyright and AI, how copyright exceptions can support your research and how copyright applies to Text and Data mining.

We also had some great events throughout the year that you can catch up on, from our annual Open Science Conference, the second annual Open Science & Scholarship Awards, and our first ever Citizen Science Community Event.

We also had a great time working with the UCL Digital Accessibility team throughout the year, they have been a great support in improving the accessibility of everything we do. We were able to highlight their work in one of our Newsletters and we also interviewed Ben Watson, Head of Digital Accessibility, who was a great sport and is an overall inspirational guy!

Upcoming in 2025

by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/gdTxVSAE5sk

We have a great year ahead in 2025, we have the imminent publication of our next Operational plan, designed to push the team to bigger and better things for the office. We are hoping to get that out in the first quarter of the year, its just going through various stages of internal feedback before we can get it out there! We will be continuing to grow our newest social media channels LinkedIn and BlueSky, and if you don’t subscribe to our newsletter, now’s your chance!

We will also be challenging ourself to bigger and better things when it comes to our conference. You all know that we like to change it up and this year we are reaching out to friends and colleagues to change our conference into our first festival!

We will also be continuing the brilliant series with Ilan Kelman on the Risks and Opportunities of Open Science. We have already shared the first two parts but keep an eye out for the last three parts coming soon!

Last month, we hosted our 4th UCL Open Science Conference! This year, we focused inward to showcase the innovative and collaborative work of our UCL researchers in our first UCL community-centered conference. We were excited to present a strong lineup of speakers, projects, and posters dedicated to advancing open science and scholarship. The conference was a great success, with nearly 80 registrants and an engaged online audience.

If you missed any sessions or want to revisit the presentations, you can find highlights, recordings, and posters from the event below.

Session 1 – Celebrating Our Open Researchers

The conference began with a celebration of the inaugural winners of the Open Science & Scholarship Awards, recognizing researchers who have significantly contributed to open science. This session also opened nominations for next year’s awards.

Access the full recording of the session 1 on MediaCentral.

Session 2: Policies and Practice

Katherine Welch introduced an innovative approach to policy development through collaborative mosaic-making. Ilan Kelman discussed the ethical limits of open science. He reminded us of the challenges and considerations when opening up research and data to the public. David Perez Suarez introduced the concept of an Open Source Programme Office (OSPO) at UCL and, with Sam Ahern, showcased the Centre of Advanced Research Computing’s unique approach to creating and sharing open educational resources.

Access the full recording of the session 2 on MediaCentral.

Session 3: Enabling Open Science and Scholarship at UCL

This session introduced new and updated services and systems at UCL designed to support open science and scholarship. Highlights included UCL Profiles, Open Science Case Studies, the UCL Press Open Textbooks Project, UCL Citizen Science Academy, and the Open@UCL Newsletter.

Access the full recording of the session 3 on MediaCentral.

Session 4: Research Projects and Collaborations

This session featured presentations on cutting-edge research projects and collaborations transforming scholarly communication and advancing scientific integrity. Klaus Abels discussed the journey of flipping a subscription journal to diamond open-access. Banaz Jalil and Michael Heinrich presented the ConPhyMP guidelines for chemical analysis of medicinal plant extracts, improving healthcare research. Francisco Duran explored social and cultural barriers to data sharing and the role of identity and epistemic virtues in creating transparent and equitable research environments.

Access the full recording of the session 4 on Media Central.

Posters and Networking:

We also hosted a Poster Session and Networking event where attendees explored a variety of posters showcasing ongoing research across UCL’s disciplines, accompanied by drinks and snacks. This interactive session provided a platform for researchers to present their work, exchange ideas, and foster collaborations within and beyond the UCL community.

Participants engaged directly with presenters, learning about research findings and discussing potential synergies for future projects. Themes covered by the posters included innovative approaches to public engagement by UCL’s Institute of Global Prosperity and Citizen Science Academy, as well as discussions on the balance between open access and data security in the digital age.

Explore all the posters presented at the UCL Open Science Conference 2024 on the UCL Research Data Repository. This collection is under construction and will continue to grow.

Reminder for Attendees – Feedback

For those who attended, please take a minute to complete our feedback form. Your input is very important to improve future conferences. We would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

A Huge Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the UCL Open Science Conference 2024. Your participation and enthusiasm made this event a great success. We appreciate your commitment to advancing open science and scholarship across UCL and beyond, and we look forward to seeing the impact of your work in the years to come.

Please watch the sessions and share your feedback with us. Your insights are invaluable in shaping future events and supporting the open science community.

We look forward to seeing you at next year’s conference!

With less than a week until this year’s UCL Open Science Conference, anticipation is building! We are thrilled to announce that the programme for the UCL Open Science & Scholarship Conference 2024 is now ready. Scheduled for Thursday, June 20, 2024, from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm BST, both onsite at UCL and online, this year’s conference promises to be an exciting opportunity to explore how the UCL community is leading Open Science and Scholarship initiatives across the university and beyond.

Programme Outline:

1:00-1:05 pm
Welcome and Introductions
Join us as we kick off the conference with a warm welcome and set the stage for the afternoon.

1:05-1:45 pm
Session 1: Celebrating our Open Researchers
Learn about the outstanding contributions of our Open Science champions and their work recognised at the UCL Open Science & Scholarship Awards last year.

1:45-2:45 pm
Session 2: Policies and Practice
Explore discussions on policy development and ethical considerations in Open Science, including talks on collaborative policy-making and the role of Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs).

2:45-3:15 pm
Coffee Break
Network and engage with our fellow attendees over coffee, tea, and biscuits.

3:15-4:00 pm
Session 3: Enabling Open Science and Scholarship at UCL
Check out services and initiatives that empower UCL researchers to embrace Open Science, including updates on UCL Profiles, UCL Citizen Science Academy, and Open Science Case Studies.

4:00-4:45 pm
Session 4: Research Projects and Collaborations
Discover cutting-edge research projects and collaborations across UCL, including case studies involving the transition to Open Access publishing, reproducible research using medicinal plants, and social and cultural barriers to data sharing.

4:45-5:00 pm
Summary and Close of Main Conference
Reflect on key insights from the day’s discussions and wrap up the main conference.

5:00-6:30 pm
Evening Session: Poster Viewing and Networking Event
Engage with our presenters and attendees over drinks and nibbles, while exploring posters showcasing research and discussions in Open Science and Scholarship through diverse perspectives.

For the complete programme details, please access the full document uploaded on the UCL Research Data Repository, or access the QR code.

Join us – Tickets are still available!
Whether you’re attending in person or joining us virtually, we invite you to participate in discussions that shape the future of Open Science and Scholarship at UCL. Sales will close on Monday. Secure your spot now! Register here.

Thank you!
Thank you once more to everyone who submitted their ideas to the Call for Papers and Posters. We received brilliant contributions and are grateful for our packed programme of insightful discussions and projects from our community.

We look forward to welcoming you to the UCL Open Science & Scholarship Conference 2024!

Get involved!

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn, and join our mailing list to be part of the conversation!

Theme: Open Science & Scholarship in Practice 
Date: Thursday, June 20th, 2024 1-5pm, followed by Poster display and networking
Location: UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, IAS Common Ground room (G11), South Wing, Wilkins Building 

We are delighted to announce the forthcoming UCL Open Science Conference 2024, scheduled for June 20, 2024. We are inviting submissions for papers and posters showcasing innovative practices, research, and initiatives at UCL that exemplify the application of Open Science and Scholarship principles. This internally focused event aims to showcase the dynamic landscape of Open Science at UCL and explore its practical applications in scholarship and research, including Open Access Publishing, Open Data and Software, Transparency, Reproducibility, Open Educational Resources, Citizen Science, Co-Production, Public Engagement, and other open practices and methodologies. Early career researchers and PhD students from all disciplines are particularly encouraged to participate.

Attendees of the UCL Open Science Conference 2023 participating in a workshop

Conference Format: 

Our conference will adopt a hybrid format, offering both in-person and online participation options, with a preference for in-person attendance. The afternoon will feature approximately four thematic sessions, followed by a poster session and networking opportunities. Session recordings will be available for viewing after the conference. 

Call for papers

Submission Guidelines: 

We invite all colleagues at UCL to submit paper proposals related to Open Science and Scholarship in Practice, some example themes are below. Papers could include original research, case studies, practical implementations, and reflections on Open Science initiatives. Submissions should adhere to the following guidelines: 

• Abstracts: Maximum 300 words
• Presentation Length: 15 minutes (including time for questions)
• Deadline for Abstract Submission: F̶r̶i̶d̶a̶y̶, A̶p̶r̶i̶l̶ 2̶6̶  Friday, May 3. (Deadline Extended!) 

Please submit your abstract proposals using this form.  

Potential Subthemes: 

• Case Studies and Best Practices in Open Science and Scholarship
• Open Methodologies, Transparency, and Reproducibility in Research Practices
• Open Science Supporting Career Development and Progression
• Innovative Open Data and Software Initiatives
• Promoting and Advancing Open Access Publishing within UCL
• Citizen Science, Co-Production, and Public Engagement Case Studies
• Open Educational Resources to Support Teaching and Learning Experiences

Call for Posters

Session Format: 

The poster session will take place in person during the evening following the afternoon conference. Posters will be displayed for networking and engagement opportunities. Additionally, posters will be published online after the conference, potentially through the Research Data Repository. All attendees are encouraged to participate in the poster session, offering a platform to present their work and engage in interdisciplinary discussions. 

Submission Guidelines: 

All attendees are invited to propose posters showcasing their work related to Open Science and Scholarship in Practice. Posters may include research findings, project summaries, methodological approaches, and initiatives pertaining to Open Science and Scholarship. 

Deadline: Friday, May 24 

Please submit your poster proposals using this form.

Next Steps

Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unplash

Notifications of acceptance will be sent in the week ending May 10th for Papers and June 7th for Posters. 

Recordings of the UCL Open Science Conference 2023, are available on this blog post from May 2023.

For additional information about the conference or the calls, feel free to reach out to us at openscience@ucl.ac.uk. 

Watch this space for more news and information about the upcoming UCL Open Science Conference 2024!  

Following our blog post last week, where we reflected on the achievements of 2023, this week we wanted to look forward and share our plans for 2024. From championing open research practices to fostering inclusivity, transparency, and collaboration, the UCL Office for Open Science Scholarship (OOSS) teams are gearing up for an exciting new year!

OOSS 2024 Initiatives:

Annual Conference: Anticipate the return of the UCL Open Science Conference after Easter, promising an exciting and engaging program. Stay tuned for details as we continue to drive conversations on open science, sustainability, and inclusivity in research practices.

Authorship Overview: Building on the success of the 2023 conference, OOSS is preparing to release an overview of best practices in authorship. The focus on equity in authorship during a dedicated workshop last year has further contributed to the development of a UCL statement on Authorship, showcasing our commitment to fostering fair and inclusive authorship practices.

UCL Open Research Train the Trainer Course: OOSS proudly supports the UCL Open Research Train the Trainer course, a key part of the UKRN Open Research Programme. This course aims to empower participants with the knowledge and skills needed to champion open research practices, contributing to the broader mission of advancing openness in academia and beyond.

Open Science Website Overhaul: Over the summer, the office has ambitious plans for an overhaul of the Open Science website. This initiative aims to enhance user experience and engagement. As part of this revamp, case studies from the community will be gathered, providing an opportunity for voices within UCL to contribute to the narrative of open science. Watch out this space!

Research Data Team:

Love Data Week 2024: In February 2024, the Research Data Team will celebrate Love Data Week, a dedicated time to showcase impactful data from the academic community underscoring the team’s commitment to recognising the value of open data practices and promoting its significance in research. Join us!

Training and Review Services: The Research Data Team is dedicated to enhancing accessibility in 2024. One of the key initiatives involves the redesign of online training for Writing Data Management Plan providing a more user-friendly experience for researchers to access resources and guidance efficiently. Additionally, throughout the year, the team will offer training sessions and review services on data management plans. This ongoing support ensures that researchers align with funders’ criteria and best practices, contributing to the overall improvement of data management within the UCL community.

Best Practice Guidance for Metadata Records: An important focus next year will be the development of best practice guidance for creating high-quality metadata records. These records play an essential role in enhancing the findability and reusability of research data. To facilitate this, the team is creating user-friendly video guides, making it easier for researchers to grasp the essentials of metadata creation and promoting adherence to best practices.

Citizen Science Team:

Community Building: The Citizen Science Team at OOSS is committed to community building in 2024. The focus is on expanding the UCL Citizen Science community, fostering connections among researchers and communities passionate about citizen science initiatives. A landmark initiative will be the hosting of the inaugural UCL Citizen Science Community event. This event provides a platform for community members to come together, share experiences, and explore collaborative opportunities. Stay tuned and participate!

Principles for UCL Citizen Science Projects: The Citizen Science Team recognizes the importance of establishing clear principles for UCL Citizen Science projects. In 2024, efforts are underway to articulate these principles, providing a framework that ensures the ethical, inclusive, and impactful execution of citizen science initiatives. These principles aim to guide project leaders, participants, and collaborators in creating meaningful contributions to both research and public engagement.

Establishing a Citizen Science Support Service: To further support the UCL community’s engagement with citizen science, the team is working on establishing a dedicated Citizen Science Support Service. This service will serve as a central hub for resources, guidance, and assistance related to citizen science projects. The team is also compiling an enhanced list of support resources for citizen science. This will include a diverse range of materials, from guidelines and toolkits to success stories and best practice examples. By consolidating these resources, the team intends to provide a valuable repository to guide researchers and community members involved in citizen science projects. While this is underway, we encourage you to explore the available resources and training materials on our website!

Open Access:

Support and Funding for Long-Form Outputs: In 2024, the Open Access Team is committed to extending support and funding to authors working on long-form outputs, such as monographs, book chapters, and edited collections. Recognizing the importance of diverse and open scholarly contributions, this initiative aims to facilitate open access publishing for a broader range of academic works. UCL authors are encouraged to apply for funding to cover the associated publishing costs, promoting accessibility and dissemination of scholarly knowledge.

Improving Profiles and RPS for Enhanced Accessibility: The Open Access Team is dedicated to enhancing the Profiles platform and Research Publications Service (RPS) in 2024. Plans include the development of department and group pages within these platforms, fostering a more comprehensive and accessible presentation of academic profiles, publications, and collaborative efforts. These enhancements contribute to the overall visibility of UCL research outputs and strengthen the university’s commitment to showcasing the diverse impactful work of its academic community.

Safeguarding Authors’ Rights for Open Availability: An active investigation into a UCL Rights Retention policy is underway, reflecting the Open Access Team’s commitment to safeguarding authors’ rights. This policy aims to support authors by allowing them to retain the rights to make their outputs openly available. By exploring and implementing this policy, the team seeks to align UCL with practices that prioritise authors’ control over the accessibility of their scholarly works. This initiative is an important step towards ensuring that the academic community retains agency in sharing their contributions openly.

Research Bibliometrics Team:

New LibGuide for Metrics Tools: In 2024, the Research Bibliometrics Team is focused on supporting researchers with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate the landscape of research impact metrics. A new LibGuides is underway, focusing on key metrics tools, including InCites, Altmetric, and Overton. This comprehensive resource will serve as a guide for researchers, offering in-depth information on harnessing these tools to assess the impact and visibility of their scholarly work.

Training for Overton: As part of the team’s commitment to enhancing research impact assessment, special attention will be given to Overton. The Research Bibliometrics Team plans to roll out further training sessions specifically designed to harness the potential of the platform as a discovery and research metrics tool. This will provide researchers with skills and understanding enabling them to use Overton effectively for evaluating the broader impact of their research in the academic landscape.

Get Involved!

As we embark on 2024, the UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to be a part of the open science and scholarship movement. Whether you are a researcher, student, or simply curious about the future of academia, your engagement can contribute to a more transparent, collaborative, and innovative research landscape. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, and join our mailing list to be a part of the open science and scholarship conversation at UCL!

Post by Kirsty Wallis, OOSS Coordinator/ Harry Ortiz Venegas, OOSS Support Officer

Those of us that actively support Open Science initiatives often recognise that there is a way to go and in some places there are big changes that may need to be made in order to succeed. Being UCL, a research-intensive university, we recognise and embrace the role of higher education institutions within this transformation and commit to facilitating the necessary dialogues inside the academic field, our student and staff body, and the wider community.

The Office for Open Science & Scholarship (OOSS) team, part of the Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science (LCCOS) department, is one of the crucial actors inside our institution in embracing Open Science values and promoting and advocating for these complex transitions to happen.

We propose that one of the changes that needs to happen is around the concept of authorship and what it means to all of the actors involved in research. We recognise that there are already a number of changes happening in this area, with initiatives like CRedIT, and rights retention for authors, but we wanted to look at it from a different angle. In the OOSS, we focus very heavily on the diversity and inclusiveness of our support services and the research we have at UCL, and so we work hard to allow the participation of diverse stakeholders in the design of open, accessible and inclusive research practices.

Resonating with the UCL Open Science Conference 2023 theme ‘Open Science and the Case for Social Justice’, the team proposed facilitating a workshop at the end of the day to discuss some of the long-standing issues concerning credit and authorship in research practice.

As the invitation to the final activity from the conference said, ‘Often, participants in research projects do not get credit for their significant contributions in the process, but what role should they have? People involved in a research project can hold a plethora of roles, from community leaders, patients, and citizen scientists outside the academy, to academics, research assistants, technicians, librarians, data stewards and coders within. How can we promote fairer practices and encompass all of these roles in our research outputs?’

With a clear idea in mind, it was necessary to design a participatory workshop that included researchers, but also the less-heard voices and collaborators who do not often figure in academic reports. In this session, two outstanding teams from UCL joined the adventure, the Co-Production Collective, a diverse and growing community of people from various backgrounds who come together to learn, connect, and champion co-production for lasting change. Providing consultancy, delivering training and presentations, and participating in the design and implementation of research projects, all with community members involved. And The Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP), part of The Bartlett, UCL Faculty for the Built Environment. Focused on redesigning prosperity for the 21st century, changing how we conceive and run our economies, and reworking our relationship with the planet. IGP’s vision is to build a prosperous, sustainable, global future, underpinned by the principles of fairness and justice, and allied to a realistic, long-term vision of humanity’s place in the world. As they both state on their web pages.

All teams circulated the invitation with their networks to ensure participation from a range of people, not only from academic backgrounds. Ending up in a hybrid event with around 60 participants. To promote the discussion, the workshop team prepared the ground with the case study ‘Co-Producing Prosperity Research in Informal Settlements in Tanzania’, an IGP project. Raising questions around how crucial it is to acknowledge all the contributions to knowledge production and language barriers in current publishing models. Followed by lived experience cases presented in first person by three members of the Co-Production Collective. Involving diverse perspectives, engagement levels, and roles in research projects.

The facilitators divided the in-person assistants around circular tables and the online people into break-out rooms to discuss ‘What challenges and opportunities need to be addressed to create equitable conditions in relation to authorship?’.

Each table were asked to summarise their conversations, sharing some of their ideas at the end of the session. People from the conference committee took notes to share with the OOSS team and report the workshop’s principal outcomes. These outcomes will be folded into the wider work being undertaken at UCL currently around preparing a statement on authorship for our community.

There were a number of themes that came out of the discussions and what was the most interesting for the facilitators was the extent of the consensus on many of the core points.

There was widespread agreement that all contributors to research should be acknowledged, and that they should be credited in any publications they take an active part in. There was also agreement that decisions about roles in the project and its outputs should be discussed and agreed at the outset of the project, with non-academic participants such as technicians, librarians, citizen scientists and other types of participants being given enough information to make an informed decision about what role they would like to take in publications and if that takes place, if and how they would like to be credited.

As we described at the outset of this post, we realise that this is not easy to unpick and the real value in these discussions will come from the challenges identified and opportunities we can pursue. It is easy to see the benefits that creating more equitable conditions in authorship can provide, allowing knowledge to be more granular and diversifying the opinions that can be represented, but the workshop also allowed us to dig into some real practical issues, some of which are presented below.

One major theme that emerged was in relation to research culture and the institutional inertia with regards to publishing. The lingering ‘publish or perish’ attitude in some subject areas leads to a very rapid turnaround on papers, and a perceived unwillingness to dilute credit with other names, especially in subject areas where positionality in the author list has value. There were also issues raised around the power dynamics associated with authorship and where control lies over this process, with the people who wrote the article, or the PI/research team leader who has ultimate control.

Another theme was more practical in nature and was related to systems and affiliations. In many cases it is very difficult to include an unaffiliated author, both in some publisher systems and even in some metadata schema. Also being able to give access to institutional systems and tools is also often associated with an affiliated email address. Lastly, in many cases, it is assumed all authors of a paper are able to take equal responsibility for it (CReDiT is changing this, by allowing people to be associated with the role they played, but it is early days), but in the case of a controversial topic, an unaffiliated author may be at risk as they are unable to access the support that the university will provide for its community, such as access to legal support or a press office.

The final significant theme was around language, style and terminology. Some groups pointed out that some of the understanding inherent to academia has very little meaning outside of the bubble of the university, and while external team members associated with a project will be trained to work to the integrity and ethical standards of the project, they may not be able to commit to the academic language, theoretical structures or terminology required to be involved in publications.

The good news is that all of these themes (and a lot of the other points we weren’t able to cover here) can be turned into opportunities. The first theme around research culture I think we are already addressing by starting this conversation and committing to including these findings in UCL statements and associated guidance on authorship. We will be consulting widely among the academic community and beyond throughout the process and hopefully this will allow us to challenge some of the issues raised about power dynamics and point out where people can and should be opening up their author lists to new individuals.

Another opportunity that came up in the sessions was around other types of publication. The discussion was framed around the traditional article/book, but the point was raised that there are a wide range of outputs that can come out of a project that can acknowledge different individuals, from the technical such as data, software or code, to presentations and posters, giving new individuals the chance to represent the research they have done in a new environment, and even media such as videos or exhibitions. There are definitely opportunities outside the traditional and this needs to be reflected and tied into the wider Open Science movement where we are shifting the focus onto new forms of output. It is also important that in this, space is given to the participants and citizen scientists to express what would be the most effective way of communicating the research results back to the community they effect.

This is just a very short summary of what was an intense and very nuanced conversation across around ten separate breakout groups and we were immensely grateful to the whole community for engaging with the workshop and being so open and honest about their experiences to allow us such insight to take forward into our explorations of authorship in the OOSS. The Co-Production Collective shared some interesting reflections about the workshop discussions on their webpage, exposing how participants contributing from the live-experience field are commonly left out in credits, authorship and contribution acknowledgements.

The April 24th conference resonated among members of their collective to take take a step forward, telling, one of them commented that “it made me pluck up the courage to ask to be an author on a project I set up and did the initial work on, and the professor received it really well and said well done for getting in touch and rightfully asking as these things can be daunting and missed…”

Thank you so much to everyone that joined our recent conference, whether on campus or online – we had a wonderful time and we hope you did too! We will be posting a report of the workshop portion of the conference soon, as well as some pictures and some responses to your questions that we didn’t get to on the day, but we thought that the recordings should take precedence!

Session 1

View the recording on UCL Media Central

Session 2

View the recording on UCL Media Central

Session 3

View the recording on UCL Media Central

There are only a few days now until this year’s UCL Open Science Conference and I hope you are looking forward to it as much as we are!

We have closed the ticket sales, placed the food order and started counting the chairs to make sure that we have enough for everyone that is coming to join us in person. We have also been briefing the committee and preparing to welcome our online audience to our first fully hybrid event!

As you get ready to join us on the day, there are a few things you can do:

• Download a copy of the programme!
  We will have QR codes available on the day but we are actively trying to keep the carbon footprint of the conference down so we will only have the session overview available on the day. This longer version of the programme outlines all of our talks and introduces all of our speakers.
• Familiarise yourself with the conference code of conduct
  The organisational committee of the UCL Open Science Conference are committed to providing a safe, welcoming, and inclusive experience for participants. Participants, including organisers, speakers, volunteers, and attendees are expected to abide by the Code of Conduct which can be found on p12 of the programme for this event.
• Join our new mailing list!
  Find out about events, receive our newsletter right into your inbox, and most importantly, get notified when we upload the recordings from the conference!
• Get ready to tell us what you think!
  As with everything we do, we are always keen to grow and improve and while we know that everyone is constantly asking for feedback and for you to fill out forms, but it really does help us improve the work that we do. We will have this link available on the day, but here it is along with everything else you will need, for your bookmarking convenience!

We are very much looking forward to meeting you all on the day, see you there!