Openness & Equity - An OA Week Reflection & Call for Participation
The Open Research Funders Group (ORFG) is a network of philanthropies committed to the open sharing of research outputs. Since our inception in 2016, we have been singularly focused on making articles, data, code, protocols, and a range of other materials more rapidly accessible and reusable for as many people as possible. While openness is a laudable goal, in 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s killing and the subsequent wave of protests, the ORFG came to the belated realization that we need to be much more actively engaged in building a just, inclusive world. Given our remit, we aspire to leverage open research practices to create a more transparent, welcoming, and collaborative research ecosystem. In 2020, the ORFG launched an Equity & Open Science Working Group, which includes representatives from five ORFG members, as well as seven scholars, scientists, and activists working at the intersection of open research and marginalized communities. The working group has determined that to rapidly and visibly champion a more equitable and open research environment, philanthropies should leverage the best asset they bring to the research conversation – their grantmaking capabilities.
As a first step in this journey, the ORFG, in collaboration with this working group and the Health Research Alliance, is creating the rough framework of an Open & Equitable Model Funding Program, co-created from the ground up with traditionally underrepresented communities and based on principles of equity, social justice, and open research. Recognizing that the potential for bias and inequity exists across the entire grantmaking life cycle, the Open & Equitable Model Funding Program will pilot interventions across all the steps of program development (beginning with RFA development and eligibility criteria), guidance for applicants, application review (including but not limited to the selection and training of reviewers), implementing enhancements to the program (mentoring, advocacy, professional development, etc.), to the evaluation of the success of the awardees (using metrics that measure open research practices, for instance, not simply journal impact factors) and finally dissemination of the evaluation of the programs piloted by the cohort. The intent of the program is to surface specific interventions in conjunction with traditionally marginalized communities, and pilot them in the field with four to six philanthropies, and to share lessons learned in a frank, real-time manner.
This September, the Program launched with the hiring of ORFG's first Civic Science Fellow, Eunice Mercado Lara, who joined the team specifically to coordinate these activities. Her first task was to conduct a listening tour with the members of the Working Group to get their feedback on possible interventions, plans, and next steps. Over the following months, we will also be seeking input from the broader academic community.
This year’s Open Access Week theme focuses on equity and its relevance to openness, with the aim of better understanding how to build systemic equity and leverage the voice of traditionally marginalized or underrepresented academic communities. In the spirit of making our work on this Model Funding Program as open and collaborative as possible, we believe Open Access Week is an excellent opportunity to reach out to a broader audience and share our vision for the program’s mission. Beyond letting the world know what we are doing, we want to issue an open invitation for co-creation. A top-down approach devised by a handful of wealthy philanthropies is anathema to what we hope to accomplish. We want and need feedback, materials, contacts, experiences, and a range of other inputs from anyone who is able to contribute to this effort. As a very small first step, we have created a public survey with three quick questions in which we welcome the entire community to share their views and understandings of open and equitable scholarship. We will be tweeting about it throughout the week and encouraging the conversation with users in three languages (English, French, and Spanish). We are welcoming the participation of anyone interested to be part of the discussion. If you or anyone in your network would like to share your experiences or ideas in more detail, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us through ORFG, or email Eunice Mercado directly at eunice@orfg.org.