Science of Team Science 2021

In June 2021, the ICOR initiative was first announced at the Science of Team Science Conference.

ICOR is emerging from discussions among a group of trusted colleagues on how to move from dialog to action in changing the incentives for scientific research from closed and competitive to open and collaborative. 

Stratos and Rapid Science, working with HHMI and Janelia Research Campus, started these discussions before the pandemic set in, but the impact of Covid and the consequent push for rapid vaccines has demonstrated that open and collaborative science lead to better outcomes. Since then, the EU, UNESCO, the UN, and the National Academies in the US have all released reports and findings supporting open science as the best path forward.

ICOR believes that open is a crucial step toward collaborative research, which in turn is what will get us the fastest and best outcomes in work on climate change, poverty, pandemics, global health, and more. Open is necessary in order for researchers to collaborate early and often. The group includes individuals representing funders, researchers and their institutions, advocates, and nonprofits.

The ICOR work is focused on practical demonstration projects that could scale or become templates for not just doing open and collaborative science, but for how to incentivize and reward it from the perspective of funders, institutions, and governments. This is what’s needed for a meaningful shift in the current research reward paradigm based almost solely on publication metrics. 

Look for ways to get involved throughout this website and check out the video that the ICOR team produced for the recent 2021 Science of Team Science Conference.