Background

The purpose of these awards is to celebrate innovation, advocacy and good practice, whilst addressing and reflecting upon some of the issues and barriers faced by researchers who engage in open research. The scheme also continues to bring about long-term cultural change at the University by showcasing the work of our community and encouraging staff and students to engage in and discuss open research practice as it applies to their discipline. 

The core values and principles of open research are outlined in the University Open Research Statement:

Examples of how such practices and principles can be applied at various stages in the research lifecycle are provided on the Open Research Skills Framework. 

These awards have been organised in collaboration between the University Open Research Advocates, Operations and Strategy Groups, with support from Research England Enhancing Research Culture funding.

Submissions

The submission form is open from Monday 17 April 2023. All entries must be submitted using the form provided by the deadline of 12 noon on Monday 15 May 2023.

Entries can be submitted by individuals, or on behalf of a York-based/led research group or lab. The individual who submits the entry (the main entrant) must be a University of York affiliated member of staff or student, although groups may include staff and/or students based at other institutions. Members of the University Open Research Strategy and Operations Group and awards judging panel are not permitted to enter. 

Submissions must be based on an original research project or initiative (ongoing or completed) and must acknowledge any inspiration or work taken from existing projects or initiatives. If the research project or initiative has been funded (either internally or externally) then this should also be clearly acknowledged on the submission form. The awards planning team reserves the right to reject any entries which do not meet these basic criteria for submission. 

All eligible entrants will receive a goody bag of York Open Research branded merchandise, subject to availability. 

Judging process and criteria

Following the submissions deadline, eligible entries will be sent to the judging panel for consideration.

The criteria for judging will be as follows:

• In accordance with the University Open research statement, does the submission explore and engage with a range of open research practices, seeking to make the research process transparent and to create new opportunities for outputs and methods to be reused, reproduced and credited?

• Does the submission offer any wider benefits for the research community at York, for example influencing other researchers to engage in or discuss open research practice.

• Does the submission reflect on potential issues or barriers to open research practice, and does it encourage further dialogue or solutions on how these can be addressed?

The judging panel’s decision is final and they reserve the right not to comment on individual submissions in cases where there may be a conflict of interest.  

The Library Open Research Team will aim to notify and congratulate all awardees within two weeks of the submissions deadline, and will also notify unsuccessful entrants around the same time. A summary of awardees and their projects or initiatives will be announced more widely through the University website, social media and internal communication channels before the end of Summer term. 

The judging panel for the 2023 awards are as follows: 

• Ed Kirby, Faculty Research Manager, Social Sciences (Social Sciences representative)

• Emma Rand, Senior Lecturer, Department of Biology (Sciences representative)

• Emma Sullivan, PhD Student, Psychology (ECR representative)

• Jo Tozer, Research Manager, Archaeology (Arts and Humanities representative)

Prizes

This scheme is offering three ECR prizes of £500 for student or PGR-led projects (one from each academic faculty: Arts and Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences) and a £1,000 prize for one submission from a research group. Additional prizes will be awarded for eligible projects at the discretion of the judging panel. As in previous years, attention will be given to especially creative or innovative submissions, or submissions from disciplines where engagement with open research is limited.

Prize money will be paid to the main entrant. Note that awards can only be paid to University of York employed staff or students. In accordance with Finance Department policy, staff will receive their prize money as a 'taxable incentive' via Payroll. Students will receive their prize money through Accounts Payable (non-taxable), unless the prize money is to be used to fund further work activities in which case they will need to be paid through Payroll (taxable via casual staff contracts). 

Use of submissions as case studies

The Open Research Team would like to adapt any eligible submissions for inclusion in our Open Research in practice case studies series, where it can be used by others for training and advocacy purposes. This includes (but is not limited to) use on University web pages and resources (such as the Open Research Skills Framework), social media, internal communication channels, workshops and events. The Open Research Team will send entrants a draft case study to review and approve before publication. You will retain copyright ownership of your work in this format, and case studies will be made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) licence unless you object to this. Entrants may also wish to write their own case study for publication, or provide an overview of their work in another format such as a video presentation.

Rights and personal information

Entrants will retain ownership and intellectual property rights to their work, but the Open Research Team reserves the right to share the name(s), titles and summaries of eligible submissions on the University website, social media and internal communication channels for promotional purposes as part of the awards campaign. A public record of awardees and information about their projects and initiatives will be maintained on the Open Research in Practice wiki space. 

The main entrant is responsible for ensuring that they have obtained permission from all rights holders and interested parties (for example, other members of their research group, supervisors and external funders) before submitting their entry. 

Submission form responses, including personal information such as name(s) and email address(es), will be stored securely in a Google Sheet, accessible only to members of the judging panel and Open Research Strategy and Operations groups. This data will only be retained for the purposes of shortlisting and judging and it will be deleted once the awards process has been completed. 

Submissions are entered at the individual’s own risk. The University is not responsible for any loss or damage (however caused) during the submission or awards process.

Contact

Any further questions can be emailed to the Open Research Team: lib-open-research@york.ac.uk