The University of Groningen (UG) is committed to actively stimulating and facilitating Open Science principles among our academic community. The Open Science Programme supports the UG community in making this transition to being open. Fundamental steps were taken during the first phase of the programme (2021-2023). The second phase of this programme, running from 2024 until 2026, will focus on making Open Science an integrated part of the research and educational culture at the UG.

We talked to Casper Albers, Dean of the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences (BSS) and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Open Science Programme since 2024.

Congratulations on your appointment as the dean of the BSS and the chair of the Steering Committee of the Open Science Programme. What inspired you to take on the position of steering committee chair, and what would you say are the strategic priorities for the second phase of the Open Science Programme?

Thank you. The honest answer is that it came with the function. Kees Aarts, the previous dean, was chair of the steering committee, and it made sense that I took this over. As one of the Open Science ambassadors of the university, this function also clearly aligns with my interests.

Regarding the strategic priorities, these will mainly be a continuation of the first phase. The programme was well on track, and in essence we want to continue in the same direction. There are some aspects, mainly open education, that received relatively little attention in phase one, and will now receive more attention.

The Open Science Programme works towards embedding open science into recognition and rewards policies. What do you see as the best practices in open science that deserve more recognition and how should these practices be rewarded?

The essence of open science is transparency; being open about all the steps that were taken in the scientific cycle that led to a publication. To a large extent, this is much more about a different approach to science rather than specific actions.

Obviously, actions like preregistration, sharing the data that you are allowed to share and analysis scripts, and replication studies are useful steps in open science. However,  I’m not in favour of making a detailed list of actions that give you points – or badges – that you can use in a recognition and rewards setting. Rather, researchers should be able to have a convincing narrative on how they spent their time and why this was useful; rather than counting publications and impact factors. We should avoid replacing the old system based on simplistic counts with a system where we count shared datasets etc.

In a previous interview four years ago you stated that GDPR concerns complicate making sensitive data FAIR. Since then, data stewards were appointed at BSS and the Open Science Programme created guides and resources, such as an extensive guide on data minimization and de-identification that enables making your data FAIR. How has the situation developed since then? What do you think there is still to do for the social sciences, or any discipline that deals with sensitive data to become more open?

This guide is very helpful, and we see (at least at my faculty – I don’t know about the others) that data is shared more often. However, minimising and de-identifying your data takes quite some time, and work pressure is very high. In order to have more open data, researchers need incentives to do so. This ties in with my previous answer on recognition and rewards: if your supervisor bases their assessment of your work purely on the number of publications you produce, it is understandable that you don’t put effort in publishing your data.

One aspect of open science is public engagement. As an avid science communicator, you moved  away from X towards Bluesky, some time before the faculty BSS and the University of Groningen took that decision. What were your considerations moving away from X towards Bluesky (and not Mastodon as an open and community-driven platform)? What are the pros and cons of Bluesky over Mastodon?

I moved to both Bluesky and Mastodon. I am more active on Bluesky simply because there seem to be more people on that platform. Also, it seems that Mastodon has only attracted scientists and people with strong interests in science. Bluesky has a wider audience – also people discussing music, sports, and the newest series on Netflix. Even though Bluesky isn’t as open as Mastodon, it does have several built-in functionalities that make it unlikely to end up in a similar way as X does [Ed: Bluesky or Mastodon: Pros and cons for scientists].

The reason to move away from X was Elon Musk’s active role in disinformation and global politics. I don’t want to be a part of that. As soon as I became dean, the faculty also decided to leave X. Finally, this year, the university also followed suit.

In a recent Skepsis podcast, you seemed to advocate publishing closed access, in combination with using the Taverne amendment and making final author versions available without embargo. What perspectives do you have on the current trajectory of APC-based open access publishing?

The essence of open access is that the general public can access the publications. For this, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the final author version on OSF or the publisher’s version on elsevier.com: apart from the lay-out it is exactly the same. For the finances of our university it obviously does matter a lot. In the current financial crisis, it is especially important to be critical on where we spend money.

Finally, what advice would you give to researchers who are hesitant to adopt open science practices? What advice would you give to researchers who want to be more open in their research?

Just try it. The benefits – also for the researcher – of being open become clear once you take the step. If you are too hesitant, or simply don’t have the time to learn a completely new workflow, then simply take a small step first. You’ll notice how it improves your scientific practice, and then in the next project you can take a second step, and so on. The future is open.