COS Advocacy to Policymakers

COS advocates for open science policies to policymakers in government and private organizations. This includes Congressional testimony, responses to requests for information, and other formats. These statements are publicly available and are openly licensed for maximal reuse by others.

Upcoming responses:

• Request for Information on the National Institutes of Health Draft Public Access Policy
• UNESCO's call for inputs: Global Consultation on the Draft Principles of Open Science Monitoring

COS Response to Request for Information (RFI) on Data Management, Sharing, and Secondary Data Use Challenges and Opportunities (NOT-AG-24-013)

COS encourages the NIA to incentivize data management and sharing plans, and provides examples of success where existing datasets are used in scholarship.

COS Response to Request for Information on Potential Solutions for Reducing Publication Bias Against Null Studies (NOT-NS-24-052)

COS points to the most significant barriers to addressing publication bias, how dissemination of null studies could be incentivized and identifies potential solutions to publication bias across biomedical research fields.

COS Response to Request for Information: Public Access Plan 2.0: Ensuring Open, Immediate, and Equitable Access to National Science Foundation Funded Research

COS endorses the National Science Foundation's plan to implement guidance from the OSTP while suggesting areas for improvement, such as making Data Management and Sharing Plans publicly available and part of the scored criteria for grant proposals.

Written Testimony for the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on November 13, 2019

Making open the default for research plans, data, materials, code, and outcomes will reduce friction in discovery and maximize return on research investments. Extending existing policy frameworks about transparency and openness across federal agencies will help improve research efficiency. These frameworks can help decision-makers navigate situations in which principles of security and privacy are in conflict with principles of transparency and openness. Rule-making should be informed by the best available evidence. Sometimes the best available evidence is based on data that cannot be transparent, has high uncertainty, or has unknown reproducibility. Developing tools that clarify uncertainty will improve policymaking and shape research priorities.

House Testimony Before Subcommittee on Research and Technology on NSF

Testimony of Jeffrey R. Spies, Ph.D. before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology. Hearing on “National Science Foundation Part II: Future Opportunities and Challenges for Science”.

On the Center for Open Science, reproducibility, and recommendations for NSF on openness and reproducibility. March 21, 2017

Recommendations for Supporting Prospective Study Registration in the Basic Experimental Studies in Humans And Alternative Procedures for Results Dissemination

Recently, the NIH has modified the definition of clinical trial so that it applies to a much broader range of studies that previously were classified as clinical research but not specifically as trials. This definition, below, specifically includes research where behavioral outcomes are a focus of the study:

“A research study in which one or more human subjects are prospectively assigned to one or more interventions (which may include placebo or other control) to evaluate the effects of those interventions on health-related biomedical or behavioral outcomes.”

With the addition of behavioral outcomes, many studies that previously would not have been “clinical trials” are now so classified. Research studies that meet both criteria for “clinical trial” and “basic research” are now referred to as basic experimental studies in humans (BESH). The purpose of this whitepaper is to analyze and investigate ways that existing infrastructure could be improved to support these new requirements in ways that benefit all stakeholders.

Response by the Center for Open Science to Request for Information: NASA Public Access Plan for Increasing Access to the Results of NASA-Supported Research