One of the biggest challenges in open science is driving change at the stakeholder level: even fairly minor policy modifications require consultation with a wide range of people, which slows down the process and hence is a handbrake on change. By contrast, new stakeholders starting their own initiatives have none of these constraints because they can establish a rigorous open science policy from day 1. This is the case for Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP), a new funding initiative focused on accelerating the pace of discovery for Parkinson’s disease.
Right from the start ASAP has been committed to funding only open science, and considered willingness to make outputs public as a factor in their funding decisions. DataSeer is excited to partner with ASAP to help them assess and ensure their grantees share all of their research outputs. These outputs are (currently) data, analysis code, protocols, and new lab materials. DataSeer also helps to monitor re-use of existing data, code, protocols, and materials to ensure that the manuscripts properly credit the original outputs.
ASAP’s Deputy Director – Dr. Sonya Dumanis – is delighted with the partnership and looks forward to continuing the collaboration. She explained that
ASAP is using DataSeer tools in its open science compliance workflow, and DataSeer’s ability to develop customizable solutions, as well as pivoting and responding to ASAP’s needs has exceeded our expectations.
On our side, we’re very optimistic that the combination of a stakeholder committed to open science and an efficient, scalable tool for monitoring compliance is going to massively ‘move the needle’ on Parkinson’s research. Watch this space!
