van Den Eynden, V; Knight, G; Vlad, A; Radler, B; Tenopir, C; Leon, D; Manista, F; Whitworth, J; Corti, L; (2016) Survey of Wellcome researchers and their attitudes to open research. Technical Report. UNSPECIFIED, figshare. DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4055448.v1
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Abstract
This study, commissioned by the Wellcome Trust, investigates researchers’ attitudes and behaviour towards open research, examining the sharing and reuse of research data, code, and open access publications, in order to identify practical actions the Wellcome Trust can take to remove or mitigate barriers and maximise the opportunities for practising open science. More specifically, the study gathered evidence on: · researchers’ views on various aspects of open research · current practices in open access publishing · views on future developments of publishing · current practices and experiences in data sharing and reuse · barriers to sharing and motivations for making data available · current practices and experiences in code sharing and reuse · barriers and motivations for code sharing Evidence was gathered via an online survey with 583 respondents (25.6% of invited Wellcome Trust grant holders) in July-August 2016, and focus group discussions with 22 participants in early September 2016. Respondents formed an excellent representation of the different categories of grant holders. Results were contrasted against results from a parallel survey with researchers funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), as a group of social science researchers who carry out research within the context of a funder with a mandatory data sharing policy and data infrastructure to support it. Both funders have different open access publishing requirements, with Wellcome having a defined open access repository, Europe PubMed Central and grant holders expected to make their publications available within 6 months; ESRC-funded researchers are required to only make publications open access within 12 months. Also the funding models for open access, via institutional block grants and individual grants, differ. This parallel survey was carried out in August-September 2016 and received 259 responses. Both surveys provided very detailed and granular quantifiable information to test existing perceptions and knowledge about these topics for a specific research community. The detailed findings can serve as baseline evidence to develop very specific actions targeted at different groups of researchers. Survey data and focus group transcripts have been published via the UK Data service.