The University of Surrey has launched its Open Research Position Statement, which publicly supports the values of openness, transparency and reproducibility in research. The position statement was written by Surrey Library’s Open Research team and Professor Emily Farran, in close consultation with Surrey’s research community. It embraces the values of Surrey’s Research & Innovation Strategy, which place openness at the heart of Surrey’s research, whilst also encapsulating the University’s long-standing commitment to openness in research.

The University was among the first in the UK to adopt a formal open access policy in 2005. Since then, the University has been broadening the scope of openness through its research data services, its support of open licensing, responsible metrics and reproducibility initiatives and, more recently, the setup of an Open Research Working Group fostering collaboration between the University’s Open Research team, the academic and researcher community, the Surrey Reproducibility Society and other stakeholders.

This statement will help to raise awareness of the benefits of open research, and provides a framework for existing and future activities at the University. At a national level, this is part of a coordinated effort across UK Reproducibility Network member universities to release similar statements, and thus represents part of a national approach to creating a research environment in which research quality is incentivised.