Open Research (used interchangeably with Open Science) champions the idea that scholarly and scientific knowledge (and data) should be shared as freely as possible and as early as possible in the research process across all disciplines, both within and beyond academia.
Open Research increases transparency and accelerates discovery and innovation, enabling all members of an enquiring society to learn from and build upon scholarship and science – improving the health of our communities, advancing our understanding of the human condition, and empowering small to medium businesses and third sector organisations. We all stand to benefit, and that is why open research is a key part of the research culture at Lancaster. Find out more about the principles and benefits of Open Research here.
The Open Research Team work with you through the provision of services, systems, resources and training to help you achieve your research goals and enable Open Research. We’re here to engage with you throughout the whole research cycle, no matter what stage you are in your research career to help you plan, publish, preserve and share your research and meet funder requirements. Click on the headings below to find our more about each of our service areas:
We support researchers to identify where to publish research, understand how to make publications open access, meet open access requirements, and take advantage of open access funding.
We help all researchers, in any role or discipline, to access, manage, preserve and share research data effectively. The management of data is an essential part of good research practice. Most research funders and many academic publishers now have mandates that require research data to be properly managed and, where possible, shared openly.
We provide intelligence that can inform you of the impact and influence of your research, using publication data, citations analysis and Altmetrics. This can help with choosing where to publish, finding collaborators and plays a supporting role in funding bids, benchmarking of current practice and evidencing your research strengths.
If the concept of open research is new to you, it might be difficult for you to determine how you can apply open research practices to your research. The aim of this webpage is to provide resources and examples of open research practices that are relevant to your discipline.
The website lists case studies of open research practices and resources per discipline (organised as: general, open methods, open data, open output and open education).
We deliver a range of events and training throughout the year to support and enable researchers and students to engage with Open Research. The majority of our training sessions are part of the Library Skills @Lancaster programme through the 'Researcher Development' pathway. The 'Researcher Development' pathway is designed to support both students and staff to develop the information literacy and Open Research skills they need to progress in their research and careers. All sessions delivered as part of the pathway will be repeated on a termly basis. The pathway will support researchers and students with the following areas:
View our full calendar of upcoming events here.
The Open Access movement has always focused on the important work of removing paywall barriers to accessing publicly funded academic work, and while this work is still ongoing, are there other barriers to access that we could tackle alongside this? Speaking as a researcher on the Open Book Futures project specifically working on Work Package 5 - accessibility, this session will ask whether other barriers to access, such as accessibility issues, power imbalances and censorship, should be considered part of open access?
The format of the session will be a 'live survey' where a range of ideas, resources and concepts will be presented that will provide inspiration for you to share your thoughts on this Google Form. You can attend live and fill in the form during the session or afterwards, or watch the recording later and complete the Google form by the end of April. There will be a stronger focus on accessibility barriers, in line with the focus of the work package. The event will be fully online, on Teams, with joining details sent beforehand.
If you are a librarian with experience of open access in any capacity or role then your views are welcome in this session. Please register to attend live online or receive the recording.
This session will give an overview of open-access monograph and book publishing. The following topics will be covered:
What Open Access means for books and monographs and the different routes that can be used to achieve open access.
Information on the support available for Lancaster University Authors to publish Open Access Books, including the Trailblazers scheme.
Diamond Open Access initiatives that we support at Lancaster University and advise how our authors can access these.
Funder policies and how these will affect monographs in the future, with a particular focus on the UKRI’s current open access policy and also future REF open access requirements.
An overview of the Library's new guide to publishing Open Access Books.
Who should attend?
This session is open to anyone who would like to know more about Open Access Publishing for Books and Monographs and the support and opportunities available through Lancaster University Library.
This event has been organised by the Library’s Open Research Team, supporting your Open Access, Research Data Management and Research Intelligence needs. We cover research data management plans, support the collation of research impact reports and ensure open access compliance. For ad-hoc support or to find more training sessions, visit https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/library/open-research/ or contact openaccess@lancaster.ac.uk.
