Edinburgh Open Research Conference 2025
The Edinburgh Open Research Conference is a collaboration between the Library Open Research Team and Edinburgh ReproducibiliTea, and offers an opportunity for researchers, students, professional services and communities to come together to look to the future of Open Research.
Edinburgh University is committed to making Open Research the new normal and a vital part of achieving that is by contributing to positive culture change within research. But how do we and other institutions go about this?
In 2025, the question being asked is:
“What’s stopping us?” Asking what barriers we face, the challenges slowing progress, and searching for strategies to overcome them.
Open Research (OR) is no longer a new concept and is well supported by bodies such as UNESCO, the EU, and the US government. Many major research funders, governmental, and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO), now have OR policies and requirements that grant holders are expected to meet, and an increasing number of academic publishers expect research outputs supporting a publication to be released when an article is published.
Despite all of this, the uptake of good OR practices is still slow and patchy among both researchers and those who support research; so, what is stopping us from embracing OR and the benefits that it can bring not only to careers but to the wider international research community and society as a whole?
The themes below cover some of the challenges we see for researchers, but it is not an exhaustive list, we are seeking contributions that explore the barriers to widespread OR adoption but also possible solutions that can be implemented by institutions, funders, and governments.
https://www.unesco.org/en/open-science
Themes:
- How applicable are different open research practices to different disciplines and research types?
- How are technological advances, such as AI, helping and a hindering Open Research good practice?
- Moral and ethical challenges to achieving Open Research, especially in qualitative sciences or when working with vulnerable, marginalised, or indigenous groups.
- How do we move forward in the face of ongoing financial challenges and the seemingly intractable “publish or perish” approach to reward and recognition?
- I faced these challenges and won! Case studies of successful Open Research at individual, group, discipline, or institutional level.
EORC ’25 Session One: Communities and Collaborations
Watch ‘EORC 25 Session One’ directly on Media Hopper Create
EORC ’25 Session Two: Policy and Procedures
Watch ‘ EORC 25 Session Two’ directly on Media Hopper Create
EORC ’25 Session Three: Systems & Infrastructure
Watch ‘EORC 25 Session Three’ directly on Media Hopper Create
EORC ’25 Session Four: Knowledge, Skills, & Training
Watch ‘EORC 25 Session Four’ directly on Media Hopper Create
These presentations and posters from The University of Edinburgh Open Research Conference 2025 are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Header Image: Edinburgh Open Research Banner
