In 2021, ELIXIR-UK contributed to the inquiry from the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee of the House of Commons, which allowed our members to come together and provide evidence gathered from our own work on the issues of reproducibility and research integrity.
In submitting our written evidence in September 2021, we highlighted three main threads:
- Reproducibility is a complex topic and rather than focusing on a narrow view of reproducibility of scientific results, it is more helpful to focus on transparency in the research process, and the reusability of results as both are key to generating research that will be reproducible.
- Institutions must ensure career paths for data stewards and software engineers were formally recognised and supported. Our Data Steward Training Fellowship is an excellent example of embedding data stewards and their Research Data Management know-how into universities and research institutes.
- UKRI councils should require the inclusion of a costed activity related to research transparency in funding requests, with a research transparency plan extending the current data management plans, and investigators held to account that they deliver on the plan.
The importance of open data (specifically in the life sciences) and the role it plays in driving innovation was highlighted previously in the Open Data ELIXIR Europe report.
We are excited to see the above threads taken into the Reproducibility and Research Integrity report, released by the Committee on 10 May 2023, alongside many other great evidence-based suggestions from colleagues. The key recommendations from the report can be found here.