What question did this study set out to answer?

Analyzing the organizational dynamics and influential actors within the Open Science movement and their implications.

May 17, 2026Open Access

Who decides how Open science should be?

Key Points

Analyzing the organizational dynamics and influential actors within the Open Science movement and their implications.
Discussion of transdisciplinary reform movements in science
Analysis of influential actors including venture capitalists and ex-CEOs
Critical discourse on the independence of science amidst reforms
Increased scrutiny on the role of political and commercial actors in Open Science
Emergence of grassroots movements aiming to address the replication crisis
Identified gaps in the critical discourse surrounding the Open Science movement

Abstract

Who decides how Open science should be? Discussing (ethical) implications of transdisciplinary communities pushing for science reform In the mid-2010s researchers in the fields of biomedicine and social psychology began decrying a crisis of confidence after highly publicised cases of academic fraud and poor research quality in their fields became known to the public. This crisis inspired large big-team science projects (e. g. , ManyLabs), which attempted and (mostly) failed to replicate key findings from within their respective fields. This circumstantial evidence of the non-replicability of central research findings was taken by many as evidence that there were not only individual problems occurring within their disciplines, but rather systemically and spanning across multiple research disciplines. Consequentially, the initial crisis of confidence morphed into a (cross-disciplinary) replication crisis. Science was declared to be deeply ‘broken’. To try and fix or safe it (from itself), varying stakeholders from academia and beyond came together in a grassroots-like manner, to produce an array of practical solutions to these issues. Or so goes the story that Open Science (OS) tends to tell about the events that unfolded and kick-started their scientific reform movement. Given the increasing implementation of OS principles in more areas of academic life (see e. g. , Horizon Europe funding requires researchers to adhere to their OS policy), OS and the story of the recent scientific history they tell, one defined by scandals and crises, seems to be a great success. However, what often gets overlooked in the discourse – potentially due to the urgency with which the implementation of OS reforms is being promoted – are the many highly influential actors in academia and its periphery that are directly involved in this Open Science (OS) movement as active reformers (Nelson et al. , 2021; Penders, 2022; Peterson Bartscherer Ulpts et al. , 2025). One example being venture capitalists and ex-CEOs of Alphabet, Google Inc. ’s parent company, who were announced as founding members of the recently created Metascience Alliance. With science reformers’ ambitions to fundamentally change how science is being done (and not within one particular discipline but overall), this level of direct involvement of political and commercial actors as practiced by the OS movement when developing scientific reforms, when implementing them, or when founding new key alliances (see Metascience alliance) undoubtedly challenges the independence of the scientific domain. To shed a light on their (and other’s) involvement, in this talk I will present findings from my research about the organisational structures and interrelations of the current OS movement. A critical discourse within the OS movement addressing such issues has been absent so far. This talk is intended to provide an opportunity to start this conversation and reflect on the implications of transdisciplinary reform movements (in science). Reference list / recommended reading list: Bartscherer, S. F. & Reinhart, M. (2025) The (Non) Academic Community forming around Replications. Mapping the International Open Science space via its Replication Initiatives. SocArxiv. (Preprint). https: //doi. org/10. 31235/osf. io/rbyt6ᵥ2 Penders, B. (2022) Process and Bureaucracy: Scientific Reform as Civilisation, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 42 (4), pp. 107–116. Available at: https: //doi. org/10. 1177/02704676221126388 Peterson, D. & Panofsky, A. (2023) Metascience as a Scientific Social Movement, Minerva, 61 (2), pp. 147–174. Available at: https: //doi. org/10. 1007/s11024-023-09490-3 Nelson, N. C. , Ichikawa, K. , Chung, J. , & Malik, M. M. (2021). Mapping the Discursive Dimensions of the Reproducibility Crisis: A Mixed Methods Analysis. Edited by Sergi Lozano. PLOS ONE 16 (7): e0254090. doi: 10. 1371/journal. pone. 0254090 Ulpts, S. , Bartscherer, S. F. , Penders, B. , & Nelson, N. (2025). Epistemic oligarchies: capture and concentration through science reform. Zenodo. (Preprint). https: //doi. org/10. 5281/zenodo. 17177017

Who decides how Open science should be?

Key Points

Abstract

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