Chris Hartgerink, advocate of open science: ‘Make the entire research process public’

As a researcher, sharing your data, methods and publications openly, that is the starting point of open science. To make science transparent, verifiable and accessible to everyone. Chris Hartgerink opens all the doors and windows in the ivory tower of science and recently received an award for their work.

Open science is a movement within academia that focuses on making research data, publications and methods accessible and reproducible. The idea is that open science offers equal opportunities to scientists from disadvantaged groups and countries, that it promotes interdisciplinary research and accelerates innovation.

The open science movement builds on the old Enlightenment ideal: ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s mainly about equal rights to knowledge for all people. Whether you work at an institute or not, whether you have a lot of money or little. It is a universal human right,’ explains advocate Chris Hartgerink.

Seeds

And of course, open science must strengthen the reliability and validity of scientific research. Hartgerink learned early on in their career how not to do it: ‘I became a research assistant to Diederik Stapel, and in 2011, in my second year as a student, his large-scale fraud came to light,’ Hartgerink recalls.

‘That was a disillusionment. This made me ask myself what good science is. Fortunately, there were many colleagues within psychology and social sciences who asked the same kind of questions. I think our field has responded well to that case, at least in Tilburg.’

Early adopter

In 2012, Hartgerink worked on their thesis, in which students had to share data and materials: ‘I’ve continued to do that ever since, because it’s actually a very logical way of working. This way colleagues can see how you did something, and what choices you made.’

Another striking moment in their career occurred in 2015 when Hartgerink pitched into Elsevier’s database to analyse large numbers of  publications with the necessary statistics. The prestigious publisher promptly threatened to deny the entire university access to the articles. As a result, Hartgerink was forced to stop part of their research.

Open science

Since that time, Hartgerink has devoted theirselfs to open science. No longer within the walls of the university, but from Berlin, as an independent researcher and entrepreneur.

And that goes a step further than open publishing, in which a researcher ignores the beaten path of traditional publishers and remains in control of the publication of scientific publications, from peer reviews to layout and online publishing.

Open science also goes a step further than open access, which is about equal access to books, data and materials at a time when the trend is to protect and exploit data, says Hartgerink. ‘The idea behind it is that you publish the entire research process. Step by step, so not just the final report.’

The design of a study, the methods, the collection of data and the analysis can also be followed by the outside world: ‘Others, and not only academics, can watch but also cooperate in all phases of the research, so that you can see the chronology of the research, and the context in which the work is being done.’

Gesamtkunstwerk

A good thing, Hartgerink thinks. ‘If you only publish something once a year or every two years, it’s much harder for people to join in and say: I think it’s really interesting what you’re doing: Can I participate?’

Not only young researchers are embracing the idea, Hartgerink thinks. There are also senior researchers who have always supported this ideal but did not have the means to do so in the past. ‘At the time, that was still very new. For example, there are now many more resources available to share data and work processes online.’

Critical

But not all scientists are waiting for this transparent way of working. There is also resistance. Obviously, Hartgerink thinks: ‘People think about it: Is this going to affect my career? Because it’s also about prestige. For example, some are afraid that their research will be of less value without the peer review of a renowned journal.’

Hartgerink has seen it happen theirselfs: ‘With a team, we put a lot of work into a paper that we published on open access. Around the same time, a small paper of ours was published in Nature. And people in other departments congratulated us on that publication in Nature. But I didn’t get any response to that other work, which I really put months or years into.’

Pioneers

‘Ultimately, change has to come from the bottom up,’ says Hartgerink. ‘If the new generation of researchers learns to work in this way, open science can soon bring about a culture change. According to the National Plan Open Science, researchers who take the lead in this change will soon form the new academic leaders. So, there is an opportunity there for young people who are thinking about their careers.’

For driven researchers, there is an extra challenge to organize existing knowledge, collected data and reporting in such a way that they are made accessible. That is why Hartgerink has now set up a platform, ResearchEquals, which focuses entirely on open science projects.

‘ResearchEquals is still a web platform, where you publish the entire research process. Step by step, instead of just the final report. We are converting the online service into an application that anyone can install themselves, so that knowledge stays closer to the organization behind it.”

Leo Waaijers Award

Hartgerink received the Leo Waaijers Award this autumn for their work. This prize has been awarded annually since 2023 by the university libraries and the national library (UKB). The prize ‘is an encouragement and recognition for someone who has made an extraordinary and daring commitment to Open Science.’

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