Paragliding in Germany, over Bremm. Image – Getty: Kinek
By Erin L. Cox | @erinlcox
‘A Step Step Toward Enhancing Transparency’
Earlier this week, the United Kingdom’s IOP Publishing (IOPP) announced new requirements of authors, mandating public sharing of the research data used to write articles submitted to their journals, Environmental Research: Food Systems (ERFS) and Environmental Research: Climate (ERCL).Few exceptions to this requirement will be made—only if there is some compelling legal or ethical justification. This move is part of a pilot program IOPP will test before rolling the policy out to the other IOPP journals.
IOPP’s move for transparency is likely because of increased reporting on the lack of trust in scientific research.
- Since 2022, authors have been required to include a data availability statement in their articles, outlining if and how supporting data can be accessed.
- In 2023, the policy was updated to require authors who do not share data publicly to provide their reason for not doing so.
The two environmental journals adopting this policy serve communities with a healthy culture of open data sharing. A recent study of more than 30,000 articles found that 80 percent of environmental scientists share their data openly, with nearly 60% adhering to the FAIR principles.
Daniel Kiers
In a comment, Daniel Keirs, head of journal strategy and performance, says, “We believe that conducting science more openly can accelerate discovery and impact.
“This pilot is a positive step toward enhancing transparency, reproducibility and ultimately trust. We are keen to see how the environmental research community responds and to use these insights to expand our open data practices across our other journals in a way that best serves researchers and research.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on scholarly and research publishing is here, more on the work of the IOP Publishing suite of society journals is here, and more on academic publishing in general is here.