What can research funders do to encourage open science?

Question

The research landscape is complex, and different actors have different options to help with a systemic move towards open science.

Research funders

• fund research (e.g. researchers, research institutions, research infrastructure)
• assess research and its societal impact
• administrate financial, legal, ethical and other aspects of research
• help communicate research
• do many other things

In this thread, I would like us to explore which options research funders have to encourage open science in-house as well as in the communities and other stakeholders they interact with.

If you have multiple ideas for concrete actions, I suggest to post them as separate answers (rather than as one monolithic answer), so as to facilitate the discussion and refinement of your ideas.

Answer 1

A relatively simple option would be to issue prizes for people/ teams/ institutions et al. with a track record in sharing all along the research cycle.

Answer 2

The funders could require that any work funded by them needs to be open. They could define which part of the study e.g. the final publication (i.e. open access) or also generated data sets (i.e. open data) has to be made open. The plan how this is done by the funded researcher could be a fixed part of the grant application.

Answer 3

Establish a mentor system that allows people or groups with little experience in open science to deepen and broaden that experience in close interaction with more experienced partners.

An example for such a mentoring scheme is the Fellowship program recently launched by Wikimedia Germany and the Stifterverband. It is designed to help 10 fellows to integrate open science components into their research, with the support of experienced mentors.

Answer 4

Funders could have dedicated calls for open science, e.g. as per

• Open Research Fund (2019-2021) by Wellcome
• Open Science Fund (2021-2023) by the Dutch Research Council

Ideally, such calls would come with funding for accompanying research that compares the impact of the open science funded with the impact of more conventional science funded from comparable sources.