By Emma Henderson

The three winners of The University of Surrey’s 2021 Open Research and Transparency Showcase Awards were announced in early March 2021.

The awards were devised as part of Surrey’s ongoing commitment to open research and designed to identify and celebrate researchers across all disciplines and the many ways they have made their research more open, transparent, and accessible. There were two competitions. The Open Research case study award was open to anyone in the University, and applicants were asked to discuss how they have used open research practices to achieve their research aims, and the challenges and benefits of doing so. The Surrey Reproducibility Society Recognition award was open to Undergraduates through to ECRs. Applicants were asked to create “how-to” guidance on a specific open research practice, based on their experience of that practice. Submissions for both awards could be from individuals or teams.

Case study award winner Dr Marton Ribary presented a pioneering change in research practice to the traditional field of Roman legal scholarship. Marton’s “pyramid of openness” strategy was to publish both a data paper and a research paper based on an open workflow including an open project repository of resource files and code.

Surrey Reproducibility Society’s recognition award, in partnership with F1000 research, went to PhD student Eirini Martinou for her work with collaborator Dr Angeliki Angelidi on reproducible search criteria for systematic reviews. Having gained advanced knowledge on record cataloguing and search strategies, they decided to share their approach and create an open tool that could be used by researchers across many fields.

Surrey Reproducibility Society’s recognition runner up was awarded to undergraduate student Ashley Williams for her contribution to the STORM project. The project assesses UK psychology students’ knowledge, perceptions, and experiences of Open Research. Ashley developed the questionnaire for the project.

For more information about the winners, follow this link, and information about the shortlisted entries can be found here. To read more about our Open Research case studies, follow this link.