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Introducing Carly Strasser from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and a Gates Open Research Advisory Board member. Carly joins the team of advisors who have a strong interest in open research and improving the way research findings are disseminated.

As an advocate for Gates Open Research and data sharing, we were keen to discuss her views on open data, why it is important, and how to encourage more researchers to embrace it.

As an open science and data management leader, how do you support researchers to openly share their data? 

In the past, I’ve directly supported researchers in the University of California system by running seminars and workshops on best practices for data management and sharing. More recently as Director of Data Strategy at Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, I supported a team that provided training, tools, and assistance to researchers to make their research outputs findable, accessible, interoperable, and reproducible (FAIR). Now on the funder side of the equation at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, we support the research community at large by funding infrastructure and tools to enable open research.

Why is open data important for research? 

Openly available data enables several things:

• it allows for critical examination of associated research studies, which is the foundation of scientific progress;
• it ensures maximum return on investment for funds invested in research;
• it enables aggregation of datasets that might be used for large data science studies that can advance many fields of research.

Is open data gaining acceptance and commonly practiced by the community? 

Although sharing data is gaining acceptance in some communities, it’s not yet commonly practiced. I hope that the obvious benefits of open data sharing during COVID will help encourage researchers across all disciplines to think about sharing their research outputs publicly. As a community, we should reconsider the current incentive structures in research that reward publication of many papers in high-impact journals, rather than rewarding researchers for well-documented, publicly available, and reusable research.

What role should funders play in bringing about cultural change? Do you think they could do more to support open data? 

Funders are one of several stakeholders that have a role to play in ushering in a cultural change where open sharing of data and research is the norm. In partnership with researchers, institutions, and infrastructure providers (data repositories, publishers, tool builders, etc.), we must approach change from all directions. From the bottom up, with researchers encouraging one another and advocating for openness, and top-down, including mandates, incentive changes, and better support for sharing outputs. 

The number of journals endorsing FAIR data principles with open data policies is growing. Is this having a positive influence on changing the norms of scientific practice? Should journals do more to enforce open data? 

I’m thrilled to see the emergence of FAIR principles as part of the conversation in scholarly publishing. We have a long way to go in changing the norms to fully open data published alongside journal articles. I’m confident that improvements in interoperability, increased requirements from journal publishers, and increased visibility of research that uses existing open data will keep us moving in the right direction. 

What else do you think could help encourage and empower researchers to adopt open data practices? 

I would reiterate that incentives must change dramatically in academic research for us to make open practices the norm. This will not be an easy change, but it’s absolutely necessary for ensuring that best practices for open research are followed. Public trust in science and the need for research transparency make this shift imperative.

What are you hoping to achieve as part of the Advisory Board for Gates Open Research?

I’m excited to join the Board for Gates Open Research. I look forward to applying my knowledge in our thinking about challenges and opportunities in supporting grantees. I hope to not only contribute my own experiences to the conversation, but to learn from other Board members about how we can usher in the culture change we are seeking toward a more open research enterprise.

Gates Open Research endorses the FAIR Data Principles alongside its Open Data Policy, as a framework to promote the broadest reuse of research data. Read our Data Guidelines to find out how to share your data and make it openly available when submitting your research. For additional help, please see our Getting Started Guide.