Open Economics: Open Science practices permeate the discipline
Results of an empirical study of transparency and openness in the everyday working lives of economists
The principles of Open Science meet with broad approval among economists, as shown by a ZBW study. However, there is much room for improvement in the wider implementation of Open Science and also a great need for support regarding Open Science principles.
The Covid-19 crisis is changing our scholarly communication substantially. We can observe that economists and social scientists are openly sharing publications, pre-prints, data and codes from Covid-related research activities faster than ever before. They collaborate across disciplines and communicate their findings to society and politics to solve societal problems, such as the current Covid-crisis, cooperatively.
The public highly appreciates this openness, as shown by “Wissenschaftsbarometer Corona-Spezial” (Link: https://www.wissenschaft-im-dialog.de/projekte/wissenschaftsbarometer/wissenschaftsbarometer-corona-spezial/). According to this survey, the population’s trust in science and research has risen considerably during the last months. Whereas 46 per cent of the population trusted in science in 2019, in April 2020 73 per cent said so.
The ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, one of the first advocates of Open Science in Germany, wants to reinforce this change towards more openness and transparency. The ZBW wants to improve services supporting Open Science and focus them more closely onw the needs of economists in Germany.
The ZBW therefore has carried out a study looking at the role that Open Science and its practices play in the everyday working lives of economists. The field phase took place at the end of 2019. The evaluation is based on 300 of the online questionnaires which have been answered at German higher education institutions and research institutes.
You can download the full study here: https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/220086