Open science saves lives: lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic

Lonni Besançon, Nathan Peiffer-Smadja, Corentin Segalas, Haiting Jiang, Paola Masuzzo, Cooper Smout, Eric Billy, Maxime Deforet, Clémence Leyrat

Research output: Contribution to journalComment / DebateOtherpeer-review

119 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In the last decade Open Science principles have been successfully advocated for and are being slowly adopted in different research communities. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic many publishers and researchers have sped up their adoption of Open Science practices, sometimes embracing them fully and sometimes partially or in a sub-optimal manner. In this article, we express concerns about the violation of some of the Open Science principles and its potential impact on the quality of research output. We provide evidence of the misuses of these principles at different stages of the scientific process. We call for a wider adoption of Open Science practices in the hope that this work will encourage a broader endorsement of Open Science principles and serve as a reminder that science should always be a rigorous process, reliable and transparent, especially in the context of a pandemic where research findings are being translated into practice even more rapidly. We provide all data and scripts at https://osf.io/renxy/.

Original languageEnglish
Article number117
Number of pages18
JournalBMC Medical Research Methodology
Volume21
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 5 Jun 2021

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • Methodology
  • Open science
  • Peer review

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