How is the value of open science discussed and positioned? Who adopted or contributed to open science practices and how? How has the relationship between research and the public been affected by the opening of research?
While the coronavirus pandemic’s impacts have been largely negative, Covid-19 also served to challenge the way we carry out, communicate, and engage with science. In the first year of the pandemic, more research was shared openly, more preprints were posted, and we saw an explosion in the public communication of science, particularly in mainstream media. These changes have the potential to foster a more open and inclusive approach to research and scholarship and to bolster our capacity to face present and future societal challenges — but only if the changes persist beyond the pandemic.
To better understand the long-term impacts of this shift for a more resilient and informed society, the Value of Openness, Inclusion, Communication, and Engagement for Science in a Post-Pandemic World (VOICES) project seeks to investigate and share new empirical evidence of the value of opening science, to other scholars and to the public, during and beyond the pandemic. VOICES brings together a transnational team of scholars with expertise in open science, scholarly and science communication, and research impact, to understand, document, and measure how the new interplay between researchers, policymakers, science communicators, and the public have affected research, and the role of research in society.
VOICES will examine research questions across and between national contexts, including the four countries represented by the research team (Brazil, Canada, Germany, and the UK). The project is funded by the Trans-Atlantic Platform Recovery, Renewal and Resilience in a Post-Pandemic World (RRR) Award—which includes contributions from Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in Canada, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) in Brazil, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the UK, and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) in Germany.
Collaborators
Juan Pablo Alperin (PI), Germana Barata (Co-PI), Isabella Peters (Co-PI), Stephen Pinfield (Co-PI), Alice Fleerackers (Doctoral Student), Natascha Chtena (Postdoctoral Fellow), Monique Oliveira (Postdoctoral Fellow), Isabelle Dorsch (Postdoctoral Fellow), Melanie Benson Marshall (Postdoctoral Fellow)
