Where Do Early Career Researchers Stand on Open Science Practices? A Survey Within the Max Planck Society.

Daniel Toribio-Flórez,Felipe Nathan Deoliveira-Lopes,Martijn Pallandt,Hendrik Windel,Lukas Anneser,Isabell Tunn,Max Planck Phdnet Open Science Group

doi:10.3389/frma.2020.586992

Abstract

Open science (OS) is of paramount importance for the improvement of science worldwide and across research fields. Recent years have witnessed a transition toward open and transparent scientific practices, but there is still a long way to go. Early career researchers (ECRs) are of crucial relevance in the process of steering toward the standardization of OS practices, as they will become the future decision makers of the institutional change that necessarily accompanies this transition. Thus, it is imperative to gain insight into where ECRs stand on OS practices. Under this premise, the Open Science group of the Max Planck PhDnet designed and conducted an online survey to assess the stance toward OS practices of doctoral candidates from the Max Planck Society. As one of the leading scientific institutions for basic research worldwide, the Max Planck Society provides a considerable population of researchers from multiple scientific fields, englobed into three sections: biomedical sciences, chemistry, physics and technology, and human and social sciences. From an approximate total population of 5,100 doctoral candidates affiliated with the Max Planck Society, the survey collected responses from 568 doctoral candidates. The survey assessed self-reported knowledge, attitudes, and implementation of different OS practices, namely, open access publications, open data, preregistrations, registered reports, and replication studies. ECRs seemed to hold a generally positive view toward these different practices and to be interested in learning more about them. Furthermore, we found that ECRs’ knowledge and positive attitudes predicted the extent to which they implemented these OS practices, although levels of implementation were rather low in the past. We observed differences and similarities between scientific sections. We discuss these differences in terms of need and feasibility to apply these OS practices in specific scientific fields, but additionally in relation to the incentive systems that shape scientific communities. Lastly, we discuss the implications that these results can have for the training and career advancement of ECRs, and ultimately, for the consolidation of OS practices.

Highlights

Open science (OS) is an umbrella term referring to multiple strategies, approaches, and practices regarding how research is conducted and shared
Despite that Early career researchers (ECRs) value open access (OA) publications and open data, these results suggest that external pressures and reputational concerns might limit the extent to which these practices are applied, such as the aim to publish in more prestigious journals with high-impact factors or the need to exploit a specific dataset before making it openly available to others (Nicholas et al, 2017; Nicholas et al, 2019)
Extending the conclusions drawn from previous work (Nicholas et al, 2017; Nicholas et al, 2019), the present findings indicate that those ECRs holding a positive predisposition toward OS practices are more likely to implement these practices

Summary

Introduction

Open science (OS) is an umbrella term referring to multiple strategies, approaches, and practices regarding how research is conducted and shared. Some examples of steps taken in this direction are the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2001, the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities” in 2003, the Lyon Declaration in 2014, as well as the “cOAlition S4” and the “OA 2020”5 initiatives Along these lines, research institutions themselves have started to propose a transition toward publication systems based on free access to scientific knowledge (e.g., Max Planck Digital Library White Paper; Schimmer et al, 2015). The second goal of OS is to increase the transparency of research workflows and, in turn, to improve the reproducibility of scientific findings (Nosek et al, 2015; Munafó et al, 2017) Initiatives, such as the creation of the “Center of Open Science” in 2013, aim to provide guidelines toward more transparent and reproducible science. Despite the momentum that OS has recently gained, there is still a long way to go in the standardization of these strategies and practices

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