Equity, transparency, and accountability: open science for the 21st century

Knowledge is essential to saving lives and improving wellbeing. The term open science has been applied to improving the transparency of knowledge generation, but open science also has the potential to address many of the problems of inequity, inaccuracy, and misconduct that plague research, as well as to build public trust.1Besançon L Peiffer-Smadja N Segalas C et al.Open science saves lives: lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC Med Res Methodol. 2021; 21: 117Crossref PubMed Scopus (79) Google Scholar The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science2UNESCOUNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379949Date: 2021Date accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar depicts a world where all science is available, accessible, and usable in all languages, by all who need it; where all actors are transparent about the people and processes used in generating and communicating knowledge; and where knowledge generation, access, and use in academia is not hampered by inequalities or issues of inappropriate credit. Achieving this ideal is a huge task. Here we focus primarily on open research because if research is not open, the rest of the vision set out in the UNESCO Recommendation cannot be achieved. Scientific knowledge in recent centuries has been defined by, and has emanated from, high-income countries (HICs). The world's oldest scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, was first published in England in 1665, by and for men of European origin,3Lyons HG The officers of the Society (1662–1860).Notes Rec R Soc Lond. 1940; 3: 116-140Crossref Google Scholar a tradition followed by The Lancet when it was launched in 1823. As the number of scientific journals increased after World War 2, the expectations of authorship, descriptions of methods, presentation of data, and extent of reference citation changed. These changes were driven not only by growth in science but also by the profitability of scholarly publishing for large publishing companies and scholarly societies.4Buranyi S Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?. The Guardian, June 27, 2017https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-scienceDate accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar By the last decades of the 20th century many libraries found they could not pay for the ever-increasing numbers of journals published at premium prices. Simultaneously, the citation impact factor (IF) commodified journal prestige as the route to academic funding and success.5Roberts R Bibliometrics: an obituary for the impact factor.Nature. 2017; 546: 600Crossref PubMed Scopus (9) Google Scholar The resulting perverse incentives to publish in journals with a high IF contributed to many of the problems of reproducibility and trust6ScienceInnovation and Technology CommitteeUK ParliamentReproducibility and research integrity.https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmsctech/101/report.htmlDate: May 10, 2023Date accessed: July 2, 2023Google Scholar that now plague academic publishing.7American Society for Cell BiologySan Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. DORA.https://sfdora.org/read/Date accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar The end of the 20th century and birth of the internet saw the emergence of lower cost, open access publishers and databases in not only HICs but also countries in Africa (African Journals Online, AJOL) and South America (Scientific Electronic Library Online, SciELO). Unfortunately, academic institutions worldwide embraced the IF as a key measure of academic value, rather than supporting open access regional journals for disseminating research and supporting academic scholarship in their own countries.8Abritis A McCook A Cash bonuses for peer-reviewed papers go global.Science. 2017; 357: 541Crossref PubMed Scopus (31) Google Scholar Success in science now typically equates with publishing as many research papers as possible, in the highest IF journals possible, which often have subscription paywalls or high article-processing charges (APCs). Researchers usually peer review the content of these journals gratis. The adoption of these perverse incentives means large investments to publish papers in high IF journals without achieving a complete description of research, or open data, methods, software, or other outputs. Such publish or perish incentives have also encouraged predatory journals, papermills, and plagiarism, falsification, and fabrication.9InterAcademy PartnershipCombatting predatory academic journals and conferences.https://www.interacademies.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/1.%20Full%20report%20-%20English%20FINAL.pdfDate: March, 2020Date accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar In the past decade, open science has emerged to help address some of these issues. Researchers can now use open platforms and repositories (eg, Open Science Framework and GitHub) to transparently report their work from conception through protocol development, to data collection and analysis, and ultimately to publication.1Besançon L Peiffer-Smadja N Segalas C et al.Open science saves lives: lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC Med Res Methodol. 2021; 21: 117Crossref PubMed Scopus (79) Google Scholar When protocols are posted before data collection (eg, protocols.io), methodology cannot be revised post hoc to suit the results obtained.10Center for Open ScienceRegistered reports: peer review before results are known to align scientific values and practices.https://www.cos.io/initiatives/registered-reportsDate accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar Open peer reviews increase transparency of the strengths and limitations of research and journals’ decision-making processes.11Wolfram D Wang P Hembree A et al.Open peer review: promoting transparency in open science.Scientometrics. 2020; 125: 1033-1051Crossref Scopus (48) Google Scholar When preprints are available, all willing readers can peer review before final publication.12Sever R Eisen M Inglis J Plan U: universal access to scientific and medical research via funder preprint mandates.PLoS Biol. 2019; 17e3000273Crossref PubMed Scopus (18) Google Scholar Many funders and journals now require data underlying the study to be available, and some institutions incentivise data sharing.13Moher D Bouter L Kleinert S et al.The Hong Kong Principles for assessing researchers: fostering research integrity.PLoS Biol. 2020; 18e3000737Crossref PubMed Scopus (130) Google Scholar Researchers in some low-income and middle-income country (LMIC) settings have successfully adopted elements of open science.14Mwangi KW Mainye N Ouso DO et al.Open science in Kenya: where are we?.Front Res Metr Anal. 2021; 6669675Crossref PubMed Google Scholar However, barriers to universal adoption of open science persist. Despite calls for incentives to reward open practices,13Moher D Bouter L Kleinert S et al.The Hong Kong Principles for assessing researchers: fostering research integrity.PLoS Biol. 2020; 18e3000737Crossref PubMed Scopus (130) Google Scholar academia and funders have been slow to change so that researchers continue to respond to the old incentives applied to their promotion, tenure, and funding decisions. Some LMICs mimic the worst HIC practices by incentivising publication in high IF journals, even paying researchers to do so.15Buguzi S Tanzania's researchers offered US$22,000 to publish in international journals.Nature. 2023; 618: 446Crossref PubMed Scopus (1) Google Scholar No universally available infrastructure monitors adoption of open science, or uses open science to discourage misconduct or questionable research practices. Furthermore, LMICs are rarely given co-leadership in open science discussions, limiting the global applicability of resulting outputs. Given a history of appropriation of their countries’ resources and exploitation of their countries’ people,16Keikelame MJ Schwartz L Decolonising research methodologies: lessons from a qualitative research project, Cape Town, South Africa.Glob Health Action. 2019; 121561175Crossref PubMed Scopus (80) Google Scholar, 17Binagwaho A Allotey P Sangano E Ekström AM Martin K A call to action to reform academic global health partnerships.BMJ. 2021; 375n2658PubMed Google Scholar struggling with practical issues, such as unreliable electricity or internet and language and literacy barriers to publication, and challenges in obtaining funding and visas to attend international conferences and meetings,18Velin L Lartigue JW Johnson SA et al.Conference equity in global health: a systematic review of factors impacting LMIC representation at global health conferences.BMJ Glob Health. 2021; 6e003455Crossref PubMed Scopus (36) Google Scholar many LMIC researchers question why they should do additional work to make their hard-earned work freely available to anyone.19Boyes B Open access to scholarly knowledge in the digital era (chapter 1.1): the alienation of African knowledge—open access as a pharmakon. RealKM.https://realkm.com/2021/01/10/open-access-to-scholarly-knowledge-in-the-digital-era-chapter-1-1-the-alienation-of-african-knowledge-in-scholarly-communications-open-access-as-a-pharmakon/Date: Jan 10, 2021Date accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar So, what is the path forward? We propose four steps to address the issues around incentives, deterrents, supporting infrastructure, and equitable leadership that can support the global adoption of open science. First, as described in the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA),7American Society for Cell BiologySan Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. DORA.https://sfdora.org/read/Date accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar system-wide change is needed to shift incentives across the research ecosystem. Researchers’ promotion and tenure are determined by universities, which are themselves dependent on their institutional ranking to receive funding, with each having their own unique key performance indicators (KPI). Without addressing these KPIs, change in the research ecosystem is unlikely to occur. These incentives depend on where, not what, research is published. Researchers who serve as reviewers receive no promotion and tenure credit for their reviews. Instead, promotion and tenure and institutional ranking should depend on the degree to which the researcher and institution produce research that is open, transparent, reproducible, and useful. Peer reviewers similarly should receive academic credit for open reviews, as well as when their didactic points about problems found commonly in research are reused by other reviewers. Global groups such as the UNESCO Global Open Science Partnership can gather together key stakeholders, including institutions, funders (including governments), researchers, journals, and the public, to create the global standards for open, transparent, reproducible, and useful research. They can start with existing resources, including what is open,2UNESCOUNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379949Date: 2021Date accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar transparency definitions, and tools such as the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) guiding principles for scientific data management and stewardship20Wilkinson M Dumontier M Aalbersberg I et al.The FAIR guiding principles for scientific data management and stewardship.Sci Data. 2016; 3160018Crossref PubMed Scopus (6729) Google Scholar and Transparency and Openness Promotion in Journal Practices and Policies (TOP) guidelines.21Open Science FrameworkGuidelines for Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) in journal policies and practices “The TOP Guidelines”. Version 1.0.1.https://osf.io/9f6gx/wiki/GuidelinesDate accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar Tools such as CRediT authorship attribution, ORCID author identity verification, peer-review taxonomy (ie, terms and definitions used in peer-review practices),22Jones L van Rossum J Mehmani B et al.A standard taxonomy for peer review. Open Science Framework.https://osf.io/68rnz/Date: May 9, 2022Date accessed: July 2, 2023Google Scholar and reproducibility definitions23National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and MedicineReproducibility and replicability in science. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC2019Google Scholar are also important for transparency. Usefulness is measured by research reuse and value to society, defined by key stakeholders at regional or local levels. Collaborative pilot studies that include funders, researchers, and journals could help test and refine the standards for open, transparent, reproducible, and useful research in the real world. Such pilot studies could help ensure that change is properly incentivised at each layer, and gather evidence as to whether the approach improves transparency and quality. The studies could be used to develop a change management plan to scale up the approach to the wider research ecosystem. Second, with open methods and data, institutions, funders, and governments might more easily uncover research misconduct. Misconduct that has different meanings in different cultures, such as plagiarism,24Ison DC An empirical analysis of differences in plagiarism among world cultures.J Higher Educ Policy Manage. 2018; 40: 291-304Crossref Scopus (28) Google Scholar should have a global definition. Organisations such as the Committee on Publication Ethics and the World Conferences on Research Integrity can help foster such discussions. Then, bodies related to, but independent from, existing stakeholders could investigate and coordinate a standardised and timely response for different levels of misconduct.6ScienceInnovation and Technology CommitteeUK ParliamentReproducibility and research integrity.https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmsctech/101/report.htmlDate: May 10, 2023Date accessed: July 2, 2023Google Scholar The independent bodies could help address issues such as who administers sanctions for misconduct and who protects whistleblowers.25Rhodes R Strain JJ Whistleblowing in academic medicine.J Med Ethics. 2004; 30: 35-39Crossref PubMed Scopus (45) Google Scholar The approach to investigation should be transparent, consistent, and timely. Third, a global consensus on open science practices and tagging structures and the infrastructure tools to implement them is essential to support attribution and measurement of open science, transparency, and reuse.26Lawrence R Why interoperability matters for open research—and more than ever. Scholarly Kitchen.https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2023/04/06/guest-post-why-interoperability-matters-for-open-research-and-more-than-ever/Date: April 6, 2023Date accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar The infrastructure tools must be freely available to enable global implementation while sanctioning misconduct. Global tagging and open integrated infrastructure alone could help combat fraud and misappropriation. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools should be explored in all areas of reporting and monitoring open science. Effective tools could help efficiently measure publication, reuse, and attribution of methodology, data, results, and peer review, thus facilitating the new incentive structure. Finally, equity must be at the core of open science, with recommendations and pathways developed with researchers, institutions, funders, and governments to address the long-standing needs and concerns of LMICs.27Mwelwa J Boulton G Wafula JM Cheikh L Developing open science in Africa: barriers, solutions and opportunities.Data Sci J. 2020; 19: 31Crossref Google Scholar Recognising the heterogeneity across different LMICs, there is rarely a one size fits all solution. For example, APCs remain out of reach for many researchers in LMICs: waivers do not apply to many LMICs,28Druelinger D Ma L Missing a golden opportunity? An analysis of publication trends by income level in the Directory of Open Access Journals 1987–2020.Learned Publishing. 2023; 36: 348-358Crossref Scopus (1) Google Scholar or can be seen as unwanted charity. Thus, active co-leadership is crucial, lest the power imbalance that favours HIC researchers and institutions yields efforts that are not truly equitable. By co-leading efforts with research from LMICs in defining and performing research that is open, LMIC researchers’ work can get visibility, credit, and future funding. By applying local and regional definitions of valuable research and rewarding reuse, researchers would be incentivised to undertake research beneficial to their communities. Offering credit for peer reviews and reuse of key didactic review points would incentivise peer reviewers. Language and accessibility barriers must be overcome if science equity is to be achieved;29Al-Janabi A Publish in English or perish. Chemistry World, April 28, 2022https://www.chemistryworld.com/careers/publish-in-english-or-perish/4014820.articleDate accessed: July 2, 2023Google Scholar, 30Brinn S Kasdorf B Making research accessible: the arXiv accessibility forum moved the action upstream. Scholarly Kitchen.https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2023/06/28/__trashed-4/Date: June 28, 2023Date accessed: July 5, 2023Google Scholar AI could help scale those challenges if implemented equitably (figure). These initiatives will require coordination, cooperation, and investment, and sharing decision-making power to develop solutions that accomplish these goals and are acceptable to all. Investment can be achieved by shifting incentives away from high IF publishing4Buranyi S Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?. The Guardian, June 27, 2017https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-scienceDate accessed: June 7, 2023Google Scholar to global open science and independent bodies. Willingness to incorporate LMIC concerns, priorities, and cultures in global open science is likely to be challenging, but the goal of making science more accessible, equitable, and reliable is well worth the effort. Everyone with a stake in open science—which includes, literally, everyone—must be willing to work together to develop a detailed, actionable, agreed-upon blueprint for global open science with effective incentives and safeguards. This global cooperation and collaboration between countries that may be at odds politically and financially has few precedents. However, the reward for these efforts will be scientific knowledge that is transparent, accessible, generated fairly, and fully accessible and available to improve society and save lives. We urge all those working on disparate parts of this enterprise to coordinate efforts to achieve an open research enterprise for the benefit of all. MAW is a Trustee of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). TB is an employee of the BMJ and reports support for attending meetings and travel from her employer the BMJ and from the American Institute of Physics Publishing for attendance at Board meetings. SO reports grants from the International Science Council Regional Office for Asia Pacific for the Advancing Science in Southeast Asia Conference and is Founding President of the Southeast Asian Network for Open Science. JT reports no competing interests. The views expressed in this Comment do not necessarily reflect the views of WAME.