Open research

Open Research relates to how research is performed and how knowledge is shared based on the principle that research should be as open as possible.

It encourages and advocates openness throughout the research cycle. This can be through collaborative working and sharing and making research methodology, software, code and equipment freely available online, along with instructions for using it. Open Research includes making publications freely available online (Open Access), in addition to the underlying research data (Open Data).

The LJMU Statement on Open Research sets out the university’s commitment to Open Research. We encourage all LJMU staff and students engaged in research to consult this and consider how their research can be conducted in the most open way possible. 

Basic principles of Open Research

Research should be “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”. Some research outputs cannot be openly available due to ethical, legal or commercial restrictions. The basic principles of open research are to:

  • make publications available open access 
  • make underlying data relating to publications openly available
  • share protocols and methodologies
  • share software and code
  • share negative results to prevent unnecessary repetition of research
  • establish rights for (archival) source material to be digitised and shared where possible
  • apply appropriate licences to your open material e.g. Creative Commons
  • use persistent identifiers consistently throughout your workflow e.g. DOI and ORCID 
  • exploit online tools to aid collaboration including blogging, social media, altmetrics, pre-print servers

Benefits of Open Research

There are many benefits of making your research openly available. For some researchers, practising open research is already second nature. Others may feel it adds another stage to the research process, but there are significant benefits for you and the research community.

Practising open research:

  • demonstrates your research is robust
  • helps other researchers to reproduce your results
  • helps other researchers to avoid repeating research
  • ensures you retain access to your own work in the long term
  • enables faster dissemination and impact, helping to raise your research profile
  • extends the reach and impact of research outside academia
  • increases opportunities for collaboration
  • increases chances of citations
  • enhances the profile of LJMU by showcasing our institutional research profile
  • aids compliance with researcher funder requirements, including the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and Plan S

In addition to this, making your research available in LJMU Research Online and your data in the LJMU Research Data Repository can:

  • provide a secure store for your work
  • provide a stable URL for you to use to promote your work
  • provide easy access to your work

LJMU Open Repositories  

LJMU Open Repositories support LJMU researchers depositing their publications and data in order to make them accessible to a wider audience and comply with funder and/or institutional requirements.