ICOR Webinar: Open Research Policy – Private Funders’ Perspectives
Join us on Thursday, September 16th at 8:00 AM PT / 11:00 AM ET / 4:00 PM BST / 5:00 PM CET.
In May, the Open Research Funders Group (ORFG) published its 2026 Funder Policy Landscape Analysis Report and Recommendations, an analysis of the access-to-research policies held by ORFG members and other private funders of open research and open outputs. The headline finding: funder policies are increasingly requiring open practices rather than recommending them.
Policy plays a crucial role in shaping an open ecosystem, whether driven by research-performing institutions or by funders, whether public or private. Private funders are often more progressive compared to public ones. They adopt open policies because openness aligns with their missions and they want research to have a meaningful impact. This impact can only occur when research findings reach those who can use them. A paper behind a paywall or an unshared dataset represents a discovery that goes unused; clinicians, policymakers, and researchers in less well-resourced settings may never see it. Open policies make individual findings accessible for verification, reuse, and further development. However, achieving this requires coordination; no single funder can support an entire field on their own. When funders align their expectations and collaborate with institutions, repositories, publishers, and researchers, they simplify the process for grantees and create shared standards, rather than a confusing array of conflicting rules. Private funders often take the lead in this area, leveraging their flexibility to experiment with approaches that larger public agencies can adopt later.
With that in mind, this meeting highlights some private funders who have designed and implemented open policy approaches, and what they learned along the way.
We are delighted that Emily Ford, Director of the ORFG, will be the guest host, setting the scene with a brief summary of the 2026 ORFG policy landscape analysis. We then have three speakers from privately funded organizations who will offer insights on aligning open policies with organizational goals—spanning the journey from initial policy development to mature implementation:
- Ereoshi Turnquest, Senior Program Associate at Templeton Religion Trust
- Josh Gottesman, Community Director, Research Data Resources at The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research
- Prachee Avasthi, Co-founder and CSO of Arcadia Science
We look forward to welcoming you to join the discussion!
To suggest a topic for an upcoming ICOR meeting, fill in this Google Form. And as always, do list your latest open research projects on Open Research Beacon — it’s the best way to spark collaborations across the wider open research community.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash.