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With these awards, we want to recognise and celebrate all UCL students and staff who embrace, advance, and promote open science.
About the awards
The UCL Open Science and Scholarship Awards are a joint programme between the UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship and the local chapter of the UK Reproducibility Network. First run in 2023, these awards seek to highlight exceptional areas of practice and support for Open Science across the university. This programme is now in its second year and details of how you can nominate a colleague or student or submit your own work for consideration are below. To date, UCL has been a pioneer in promoting open science practices, including Open Access Publishing, Open Data and Software, Transparency, Reproducibility, and other Open Methodologies, as well as the creation and use of Open Educational Resources, Citizen Science, Public Involvement, Co-production and Communication.
Awards 2024
UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship and the local chapter of the UK Reproducibility Network are excited to announce the second Open Science and Scholarship Awards at UCL.
Who is eligible?
All UCL students (undergraduate, postgraduate), PhD students, and staff from any department/discipline, including professional services staff, can apply or be nominated.
Application and nomination
You can apply or nominate someone else for the award by completing the online form. We have kept the form as simple as possible. You will be asked to briefly describe your/the open science and scholarship activity as well as its impact with a maximum of 350 words.
Key dates
- Application deadline: Sunday 1 September 2024.
- Results communicated: Monday 30 September 2024.
- An award ceremony will take place during the Open Access Week in the third week of October 2024.
Award categories
Awards will be made in 5 categories:
- Activities led by undergraduate or postgraduate students
Examples of activities include (but are not limited to):
- organising open science training/workshops locally or for a wider audience
- building and coordinating a community around open research practices
- supporting researchers with data management to promote reproducibility
- developing new formats to share research openly
- leading or supporting citizen science initiatives
- authoring or co-authoring open research guidelines, standards, and policies
- designing templates to enable open research practices
- developing open datasets or databases that are used by other researchers
- Activities led by non-academic staff
Examples of activities include (but are not limited to):
- organising open science training/workshops locally or for a wider audience
- building and coordinating a community around open research practices
- supporting researchers with data management to promote reproducibility
- developing new formats to share research openly
- leading or supporting citizen science initiatives
- authoring or co-authoring open research guidelines, standards, and policies
- designing templates to enable open research practices
- developing open datasets or databases that are used by other researchers
- Activities led by academic staff (including post-docs) or PhD students: Open publishing
Examples of activities include (but are not limited to):
- leading the adoption of open-access formats by publishers/journals;
- systematically using open textbooks in teaching;
- publishing open data;
- developing new formats to share research openly
- Activities by academic staff (including post-docs): Open-source software/analytical tools
Examples of activities include (but are not limited to):
- developing open software and analytical tools;
- teaching the development of open software;
- teaching classes using open software/analytical tools
- Activities by academic staff (including post-docs): Advocating for open science/community building
Examples of activities include (but are not limited to):
- organising open science training/workshops locally or for a wider audience;
- leading communities of practice
Evaluation criteria
The following criteria will be used to review the applications/nominations:
Relative to the person’s career stage…
- How innovative is the activity (e.g., introducing new activities rather than replicating existing ones, developing novel open datasets rather than extending an existing one)?
- How big of an impact has the activity achieved (e.g., number of people who use/cited the tool, number of people who attend the event, type and number of subsequent activities that were inspired by the activity)?
Prizes
- Winners in each category will be awarded 100GBP as a cash prize as well as a certificate. All winners will be invited to briefly present their research at the Awards ceremony in early October 2024.
- Each category will also name up to two Honourable Mentions that will receive a certificate.
Past awards
The first awards took place in 2023: