Red to Green: From recommendations to action and evidence

Incentivizing Collaborative and Open Science (ICOR) is a group of open-research stakeholders who are building a new initiative designed to move from ideas into implementation. The newly launched website will serve as a communication hub for the growing number of projects planned and underway to improve transparency and collaboration throughout the research lifecycle. ICOR seeks to build a body of evidence, collecting data from individual pilots and projects, to help policy-makers and advocates build the case for open and collaborative research.

Over the past 18 months, ICOR has been gathering the collective knowledge of funders, researchers, organizations and academic administrators with similar goals about infusing openness and collaboration into all aspects of research. This group has strategized how to actively transform the status quo, closed research cycle to one that is inclusive, open, and collaborative. With the many emerging sets of recommendations and plans coming from governments, NGOs, and funding organizations, this is the time to take action and focus on implementation.

The opening page of IncentivizingOpen.org illustrates dynamically how we imagine moving from a mostly closed research cycle (Red) to a mostly open cycle (Green). We have identified opportunities that address impediments at each stage, as identified in recommendations by study groups and think tanks over the past two decades.

Ten unified projects – involving progressive and interdisciplinary research teams – are proposed to implement practical, real-life solutions involving tools and processes to build evidence for a culture of sharing and collaboration. We’ve checked off many of these urgencies as summarized in the latest UNESCO report on open science practices:

• Harmonized open science IP policies
• Best practices for sharing information in line with key OS values and principles, such as the FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) and CARE principles for indigenous data governance, to ensure the quality of machine–readable data and eventually accelerate data analysis and traceability 
• Evaluation of proposed projects as they unfold to ensure an evidence base for long-term strategic investment and sustainable
• Move the current OS strategizing on open access to scholarly publications to sustainable investment in infrastructure and capacity building
• Support innovative international scientific collaborations, within multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary cooperation
• Develop alternatives to current incentives, career evaluation and reward systems that promote OS practices.

Importantly, ICOR seeks, with the launch of IncentivizingOpen.org, to address UNESCO’s summation of an “urgent need to focus on common goals and values across OS actors, to coordinate existing initiatives and to be open to the new models of scientific practices needed to operationalize OS globally.” The projects and toolkits outlined on our website are initial steps to converge and collaborate on building a new “green” research system that rewards generous behaviors.