Conveners
Evaluation of Research Careers fully acknowledging Open Science Practices - what needs to be done next?
- Marta Teperek (U Delft)
- Maria Cruz (Delft University of Technology)
Description
Recently, the European Commission's Working Group on Rewards under Open Science published the report “Evaluation of Research Careers fully acknowledging Open Science Practices”. Noting that “exclusive use of bibliometric parameters as proxies for excellence in assessment (...) does not facilitate Open Science”, the report concludes that “a more comprehensive recognition and reward system incorporating Open Science must become part of the recruitment criteria, career progression and grant assessment procedures...”
The report includes a useful matrix with evaluation criteria for assessing Open Science activities and recommends that “Open Science activity by researchers should become a cross cutting theme in all of the Work Programmes of Horizon 2020 and, most importantly, in the future Framework Programme, FP9.”
However, rewards and incentives for researchers practicing Open Science are needed now, so that researchers who currently practise Open Science do not get discouraged from doing so, and researchers who are hesitant about it, feel encouraged to engage. Therefore, to promote and accelerate cultural change within the research community, the suggestions described in the European Commission’s report should be put into practice as soon as possible.
But what needs to be done for this to happen? What should be the goals and actions of the different stakeholders (e.g. research institutions, governments and funding bodies, publishers, and principal investigators)? What would be the most effective methods to engage them? And should the progress of the different stakeholders towards recognising Open Science practices be evaluated?
This will be an interactive session, during which the participants will work together to create roadmaps aimed at the different stakeholders. The roadmaps will propose effective methods for engaging these stakeholders, goals for successful embedding of Open Science practice in the evaluation of research careers, and metrics for evaluating the progress of the different stakeholders towards rewarding Open Science activities. The session will start with a short presentation to provide context and set the scene, and it will conclude with a discussion of how to disseminate its results and take the work forward. The outcomes of the participants work will be shared publicly. The authors and contributors to the EC report have been made aware of this workshop and will be informed of its results. The outcomes of this session may thus influence further steps taken by the European Commission on this topic.
