February 6, 2026
View Full PaperFrom Scientific Ideals to Practical Open Science: How reporting on study limitations can diminish Avoidable Research Waste
Key Points
- This work aims to explore the relationship between acknowledging study limitations and minimizing research waste within open science frameworks.
- Reviewed previous Avoidable Research Waste papers from 2009 and 2014
- Connected findings to UNESCO's Open Science Recommendations and CUDOS principles
- Discussed personal research on self-acknowledgment of limitations
- Conducted a small study on the adoption of open science principles between 2020 and 2023
- Identified four types of study limitations impacting research quality
- Linked specific limitation types to multiverse sensitivity analysis as a testing approach
- Found varying degrees of adherence to the internal open science checklist among faculty researchers
- Highlighted the need for better organization of skepticism within research teams
Abstract
In this 45 minute talk, I go back to the Avoidable Research Waste (ARW) papers of 2009 and 2014. I briefly comment on the links between UNESCO's Open Science Recommendations paper (2021) and Robert Merton's CUDOS principles that describe and prescribe good ways of doing science (1942). I talk at some length about my own work (with Dr. Halil Kilicoglu and others) on self-acknowledgment of limitations and connect that to the question of how we may organize skepticism (the 'OS' in CUDOS) in our research teams). I distinguish four types of limitations and link the types 3 and 4 to multiverse sensitivity analysis, a radical form of testing the robustness of study findings. Finally, I spend 10 minutes on the results of a small study we did at our open science support desk to find out to what extent our faculty's researchers embraced the 14 principles of our internal open science checklist between 2020 and 2023. The last slide discusses slow science, team science and again the organization of skepticism within research settings.