Show your working: how the ‘open science’ movement tackles scientific misconduct
- Written by The Conversation
In December 2001, a small but lively meeting in Budapest, Hungary, launched a whole new international movement. The resulting Budapest Open Access Initiative opened with the words: “An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good”.
This was the first definition of open access and referred to harnessing the internet to make scientific research openly available, without a subscription. It was a “statement of principle, a statement of strategy, and a statement of commitment”.
More than two decades later, the open access movement has broadened beyond simply research articles. It now incorporates research data, protocols, software and all aspects of the research process. The universal term for this is “open science”.
With its focus on transparency, open science offers part of the solution to the growing problem of scientific misconduct.
A system that enables misconduct
Academic institutions and researchers are focused on a very narrow set of metrics for success. These come down to authorship on a publication being the most valued currency in academia because this is the primary measure towards career progression and academic prestige.
Another industry resulting from these metrics is the international university ranking systems. These are run by commercial organisations that publish lists of universities, which in turn promote their institution as being in the “top X%” of whichever list they have done well in.
Despite widespread criticism, these systems continue to give institutions incentive to reward their academics for publishing in certain journals for the purpose of raising their rank.
This “publish or perish” push is undermining science.
For example, it has opened up several exploitative industries, such as predatory publishers. These are entities that exploit authors by charging fees for publication without providing adequate editorial services.
Also on the rise are covert entities known as “paper mills”, which manufacture academic articles (either using a human or a machine) and submit them to journals on behalf of paying researchers. This causes serious issues for editors who need to work through an increasing number of rubbish articles to choose which ones are genuine before sending them out for review by other researchers.
These paper mills create major problems for the scientific record. Some experts believe they are also illegal.
Many of the current problems with research integrity were highlighted by a 2024 study, which estimated that as many as one in seven papers is based on suspect data. A whole new area of research called forensic scientometrics has developed to try to identify some of these questionable publishing practices.
Science does have a way of correcting itself through retractions, where a problematic paper is withdrawn from the journal and a retraction notice put up instead. But identifying problem papers is only part of the solution. For example, one 2024 study found less than 5% of all papers identified as retracted were actually removed from journal websites.
Working openly improves science
So how can making science more open and transparent help?
When we talk about research integrity, we often look to the integrity of the researcher – expecting them to show “moral character”. However, ultimately it is the integrity of the research itself that really matters.
Working in an open environment helps research integrity in several ways.
Making the data used for the work freely available means the work can be better scrutinised. This is something that would have helped prevent the publication of the now-retracted study in The Lancet examining whether the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine was effective at treating COVID. The study was retracted after investigations revealed the data the research was based on was deeply flawed and unable to be verified.
Requiring clinical trials to be registered means drug studies that are unfavourable or show no effect cannot be buried.
Reviewing the “instruction manuals” of how research studies are going to be conducted, called the protocols, before the studies are undertaken also ensures more rigorous research. That’s because the quality of the protocols determines the robustness of the work.
These are just a few of the ways open science creates an environment where poor research practice is much harder to undertake.
Working openly won’t necessarily stop bad actors. But it will make it much harder for them to operate without being noticed.
A true paradigm shift
A 2022 study on open access policies in Australian universities showed only 50% had an open access policy at the time, even though this is a requirement under the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research.
Despite this, there is some hope for open science in Australia.
For example, in 2024, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia convened a roundtable event to discuss how to transition to a fair and equitable open research system. This led to the formation of the National Open Science Taskforce, which is currently co-ordinating open activity in Australia.
Internationally, the European Union was an early advocate for open science, beginning work on the European Open Science Cloud in 2015.
Individual European countries are forging ahead, with The Netherlands having a National Open Science program and Ireland launching its National Framework on the Transition to an Open Research Environment in 2019.
The EU-funded Open and Universal Science is being implemented by a consortium of 18 organisations across the world. It’s due to be completed this year.
Countries worldwide also submitted their first reports last month on their implementation of the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.
Open science is a radical departure from traditional research practices. As the summary report of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia’s roundtable event says, transitioning to it requires “a true paradigm and cultural shift”.
But for the sake of improving research integrity, this shift is urgently needed.
