Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PHIL_OS (A Philosophy of Open Science for Diverse Research Environments)
Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2024-08-31
The PHIL_OS project aims to develop an empirically grounded philosophy of Open Science [OS] that emphasises the diversity of research environments around the world and articulates the conditions under which OS can leverage such diversity to promote good research practice. The OS movement is transforming research, with OS policies adopted around the globe and widespread agreement on implementing key OS principles like openness, transparency and reproducibility. However, the philosophy of science underpinning the OS movement has not been clearly articulated. Moreover, there are significant epistemic risks in implementing OS across widely different research settings, such as the marginalisation of contributions from low-resourced environments. This raises questions about the relation between open and good science.
To address these concerns, this project combines a philosophical analysis of the epistemic significance of research environments with empirical research on how researchers working in different environments enact and conceptualise OS. This “philosophy of science in practice” [PSP] approach is ideally suited to investigating the meaning and implications of OS for the conduct of research. This project extends PSP by grounding conceptual analysis of scientific practice on qualitative research as well as collaboration with scientists and policymakers. We aim to develop a conceptualisation of OS that reframes its key principles by outlining how exchanges across environments can boost research excellence.
The empirical focus of the project is on OS practices within the plant sciences broadly conceived including botanical research carried out at field stations, breeding farms and seed collections. The project thus aims to understand how concerns around Open Science can support current and future transnational research on food security and environmental challenges. In addition, the project extended its remit to look at plant research carried out at the International Space Station and COVID-19 research and sharing, as well as citizen science initiatives carried out in ornithology and strongly wed to an "Open Science" mandate.
To address these concerns, this project combines a philosophical analysis of the epistemic significance of research environments with empirical research on how researchers working in different environments enact and conceptualise OS. This “philosophy of science in practice” [PSP] approach is ideally suited to investigating the meaning and implications of OS for the conduct of research. This project extends PSP by grounding conceptual analysis of scientific practice on qualitative research as well as collaboration with scientists and policymakers. We aim to develop a conceptualisation of OS that reframes its key principles by outlining how exchanges across environments can boost research excellence.
The empirical focus of the project is on OS practices within the plant sciences broadly conceived including botanical research carried out at field stations, breeding farms and seed collections. The project thus aims to understand how concerns around Open Science can support current and future transnational research on food security and environmental challenges. In addition, the project extended its remit to look at plant research carried out at the International Space Station and COVID-19 research and sharing, as well as citizen science initiatives carried out in ornithology and strongly wed to an "Open Science" mandate.
Over the first 18 months of the project, the project team was assembled and trained to do empirical research as well as understand the issues and underpinning literature on Open Science. We held weekly project meetings, of which one every month was opened up to members of the public, our Advisory Board and selected guests who visited us online to discuss the project and its intersections with their own work on Open Sciences in different locations around the world.
During the first six months of the project, the PI did extensive research towards framing the conceptual underpinnings of the project, which took the forms of a monograph called "Philosophy of Open Science", which has now been published. In addition, she wrote two major papers, one looking at the intersection between Open Science and epistemic diversity (now published in the top journal in the field, Philosophy of Science) and the other investigating the ways in which plant science can be documented and organised to include participation by a variety of expertises (now published in the main Open Access journal in philosophy of biology, PTPBio). At the same time and throughout the first two years of the project, the PI gave dozens of talks to a vast variety of audiences, including philosophers, historians, scientists, data experts, policy-makers and higher education leaders, to alert them to the project and garner feedback on the ways in which we are proposing to bring concerns with diversity and justice into a philosophical conceptualisation of Open Science. The PI also worked on a report on Reproducibility for the Belgian Academy of Science, thereby pushing forward that aspect of the project while benefiting from wide-ranging feedback from Academy members and consultation with research and industry leaders. Last but not least, the PI continued research on COVID-19 data sharing, whose outputs examine in detail the conditions under which an open exchange of information can benefit - or harm! - research on effective pandemic responses.
During months 7-18 of the project, the PI worked intensively with the research fellows and Phd students to define the fieldsites and set up those collaborations in order to pave the way for fieldwork. Collaborations are now established with major institutions in Ghana, Italy, Greece, the US and India. Establishing collaborations took months longer than expected, due to pandemic-related delays.
The PI has worked with the Research Fellows to set up their conceptual contributions, including on data integration and modelling in ethological research, as well as on the choice of variables in space experiments (and its implications for curating and re-using those results, when they are made widely accessible). With both research fellows, we also started to draft the proposals for special collections on research environments and epistemic injustice, as originally planned for the project.
During the first six months of the project, the PI did extensive research towards framing the conceptual underpinnings of the project, which took the forms of a monograph called "Philosophy of Open Science", which has now been published. In addition, she wrote two major papers, one looking at the intersection between Open Science and epistemic diversity (now published in the top journal in the field, Philosophy of Science) and the other investigating the ways in which plant science can be documented and organised to include participation by a variety of expertises (now published in the main Open Access journal in philosophy of biology, PTPBio). At the same time and throughout the first two years of the project, the PI gave dozens of talks to a vast variety of audiences, including philosophers, historians, scientists, data experts, policy-makers and higher education leaders, to alert them to the project and garner feedback on the ways in which we are proposing to bring concerns with diversity and justice into a philosophical conceptualisation of Open Science. The PI also worked on a report on Reproducibility for the Belgian Academy of Science, thereby pushing forward that aspect of the project while benefiting from wide-ranging feedback from Academy members and consultation with research and industry leaders. Last but not least, the PI continued research on COVID-19 data sharing, whose outputs examine in detail the conditions under which an open exchange of information can benefit - or harm! - research on effective pandemic responses.
During months 7-18 of the project, the PI worked intensively with the research fellows and Phd students to define the fieldsites and set up those collaborations in order to pave the way for fieldwork. Collaborations are now established with major institutions in Ghana, Italy, Greece, the US and India. Establishing collaborations took months longer than expected, due to pandemic-related delays.
The PI has worked with the Research Fellows to set up their conceptual contributions, including on data integration and modelling in ethological research, as well as on the choice of variables in space experiments (and its implications for curating and re-using those results, when they are made widely accessible). With both research fellows, we also started to draft the proposals for special collections on research environments and epistemic injustice, as originally planned for the project.
In addition to the planned fieldwork for the project, we have added two fieldsites: (1) the GenLab of NASA, a prime location to study efforts of Open Science especially now that NASA celebrates its Year of Open Science; and (2) Indian efforts to adapt US-made citizen science strategies to their local ornithological endeavours, which enables us to see how US-based efforts are being reinvented and sometimes critiqued when adopted in a different research environment.
In response to the many requests we receive for public engagement with the project, we have developed a board game to engage audiences in the issues we are raising with our research. This is called The Research Game. We have trialled it at our Exploratory Workshop and at the British Science Engagement Festival, and we plan to refine it and produce it as an Open Access resource from the summer of 2024, so that it can be used for science fairs, festivals, fieldwork and teaching. If the launch of the board game version is successful, we hope to be develop this game into a digital version that could be widely disseminated by the end of the project. To this aim, the staffing of the project has been modified to give more hours to the web developer and graphic designer, to be able to support this new goal.
In response to the many requests we receive for public engagement with the project, we have developed a board game to engage audiences in the issues we are raising with our research. This is called The Research Game. We have trialled it at our Exploratory Workshop and at the British Science Engagement Festival, and we plan to refine it and produce it as an Open Access resource from the summer of 2024, so that it can be used for science fairs, festivals, fieldwork and teaching. If the launch of the board game version is successful, we hope to be develop this game into a digital version that could be widely disseminated by the end of the project. To this aim, the staffing of the project has been modified to give more hours to the web developer and graphic designer, to be able to support this new goal.