Center for Open Science (COS)

The Center for Open Science’s (COS) mission is to increase openness, integrity, and reproducibility of research. We envision a future scholarly community in which the process, content, and outcomes of research are openly accessible by default.

COS’s Year of Open Science Goal

The objectives outlined in COS’s 2022 - 2024 Strategic Plan are aligned with the four broad goals of the Year of Open Science:

• Goal 1: Develop a strategic plan for open science. We describe one such model, the open science action plan, here. Further ideas are available in the National Academies’ publication on Open Science by Design.

• Goal 2: Commit to examining the review process — this could include for example Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT), funding, or projects reviews – and take action to improve the transparency, integrity, and equity of reviews. This could include identifying and measuring the impact of existing bias in the review process.

• Goal 3: Develop a plan or pilot a program to reward and account for open-science activities in evaluations and incentives.

• Goal 4: Commit to engaging with underrepresented communities in the advancement of open science.

We fundamentally align with Goal 1 by virtue of all of our organizational activities to make open the default, but specifically in executing priorities set for Year 2 of our Strategic Plan. We also aim to meet and expand on Goal 3 by continuing the administration and support of key initiatives developed with a range of funder and publisher partners to change incentive structures related to publishing new research through the adoption of the Registered Reports model and related Rigor and Transparency Initiatives.

More specifically, Goals 2 and Goal 4 connect with our efforts to scale stakeholder change and catalyze communities, as detailed below.

Scaling Stakeholder Change: We are in the 10th year of a system-wide effort to proactively reform the norms and reward system in science and elevate rigor, transparency, sharing, and reproducibility. We continue to catalyze change in the culture and incentives that drive researchers’ behavior, the infrastructure that supports their research, and the business models that dominate scholarly communication. Aligning with Goal 2, we will develop and support efforts to establish scalable approaches to monitor and promote policy changes by funders and journals. This includes efforts to increase community maintenance, promotion, and governance of TOP Guidelines, badges, and Registered Reports. Specifically related to RPT, our community-led TOP Advisory Board will be exploring how best to facilitate the adoption of TOP Guidelines at the institutional level, with specific applications relating to RPT and related processes.

Catalyzing Community: Aligning with Goal 4, COS aims to create and foster self-sustaining metascience and open scholarship/reform communities. We will increase diversity, equity, and inclusion of the metascience and open scholarship communities by including groups, communities, regions, and disciplines underrepresented in these communities and in STEM more broadly. To accomplish this, we will increase diversity and inclusion in invitations to meetings, conferences, webinars, and collaborations we lead or host.

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