If progress is not to falter, students must be trained in open research

Just over a decade ago a landmark paper titled “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science” sent shock waves through the academic community. Across 100 high-powered replications of studies published in major psychology journals, only 36 per cent yielded statistically significant results, compared with 97 per cent of the originals. What became known as the “replication crisis” soon extended beyond psychology to biomedicine, economics and the sciences at large.

That paper, by the Open Science Collaboration, has now been cited more than 10,000 times and remains a focal point for researchers reflecting on the many interlocking processes that shape how science produces, validates and accumulates knowledge. These conversations have, however, taken concrete shape in efforts to promote “open research” and ensure that research data are accessible, rigorous, reproducible, cumulative and generalisable.

This “credibility revolution” has gained real momentum in recent years. Across disciplines, new initiatives, policies and tools have been developed to combat low replication and reproducibility, as well as improve how studies are designed, analysed and reported.

We have helped shape these reforms and remain cautiously optimistic about their potential. But open research is about more than the tightening of analytical and methodological standards. The movement also invites us to reconsider how, and by whom, knowledge is created, shared and evaluated, as outlined in the Unesco Open Science declaration published in 2021.

Promising institutional shifts are already under way. In the UK and the Netherlands, for example, open research expectations are increasingly embedded in national frameworks and funding systems. The Research Excellence Framework now treats research culture as a key assessment criterion, and is further exploring the role that open research plays in this. Funders such as the UK research councils, the Wellcome Trust, the British Academy and the Dutch Science Foundation explicitly require open data, open access and evidence of good research culture in grant applications.

Yet these policy advances have outpaced changes in how we educate future researchers and consumers of science. Unless students are explicitly taught how and why to conduct transparent, rigorous and ethical research, the progress achieved so far could stall. The next generation must not only inherit the tools of open research but understand the values and practices that underpin and sustain them. Yet despite progress in research policy, many students still complete degrees without exposure to the basic principles or methods of open research.

This should alarm educators. Open research is not a niche or fleeting concern, it is now fundamental to training students as critical, conscientious and scientifically literate thinkers. Even for those students who never pursue an academic career, understanding transparency and integrity in knowledge production equips them to navigate information critically in everyday life.

Scientific literacy has long been a cornerstone of higher education but the open research movement has redefined what it means to be literate as a researcher. It now entails understanding not just methods and statistics but the values of openness, transparency and integrity that underpin credible scholarship. Progress in open research so far has mainly come from sustained, grassroots efforts by a relatively small group of science reform and open research advocates. Without structured training, this progress will stall, and open research will remain confined to a committed minority rather than becoming a mainstream and durable feature of research practice across academia and industry.

This need not entail great upheaval. Open research training can be achieved through small, practical steps that make transparency and openness part of the curriculum. For example, students could preregister their hypotheses before conducting class projects. Coursework could include the use of open datasets. Assignments could require sharing code or analysis scripts.

In addition, educators could encourage a broader discussion about the values that underpin research, and students could be taught about the recent history of science reform. All this could also help demystify the “hidden curriculum” of academia by helping students understand the goings-on of research and the state of scholarly practice.

Of course, embedding these practices requires institutional support and recognition for educators who teach them. But the benefits extend far beyond compliance with funders’ and publishers’ mandates. If we prepare students to see openness not as an obligation but as part of their academic identity and duty, the credibility revolution will become the new normal in research and education alike.

Madeleine Pownall is associate professor in psychology at the University of Leeds, Charlotte Pennington is senior lecturer in psychology at Aston University and Flavio Azevedo is assistant professor in social and behavioural sciences at Utrecht University.