Open Research Conference

Registration (with refreshments)  

Opening remarks

Natasha Mauthner, Professor of Social Science Philosophy and Method, Associate Dean for Good Research Practice.

Applied replication for data skills.

Chris Moreh, Lecturer in Sociology

The aim of this workshop is to help develop essential modern data skills for the analysis of (primarily) social science data. Participants will be introduced to core concepts related to reproducibility in research and will undertake a targeted replication exercise to test the robustness of a published empirical claim. The applied components of the workshop will cover both conceptual matters (e.g. clarifying assumptions about relationships among variables through Directed Acyclic Graphs), statistical methods and technical procedures (e.g. basics of git and GitHub for versioning and collaboration; preregistrations on OSF; using Positron IDE for multi-language data analysis (but the workshop will use R); Quarto for reproducible, dynamic document creation and publishing). Participants should have at least some experience with code-based statistical analysis, but the workshop will be suitable for both novice data analysts and more advanced researchers, with materials and readings provided ahead of the session 

Open access beyond the traditional.

Heather McKenna, Open Research Officer (Open Access)

Considering research outputs beyond those traditionally represented, e.g. journal articles, conference proceedings, books, and what options and routes are available for open dissemination. 

Open research and AI.

Delphine Doucet (Research and Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of Sunderland); Clement Lee, Lecturer in Statistics.

Generative AI is reshaping every stage of the research lifecycle, offering both opportunity and risk. This session examines how researchers use conversational AI to replicate code and offload sub-tasks, while confronting the spread of low-quality AI-generated content contaminating repositories, and AI-accelerated papermills flooding scholarly infrastructure with fabricated outputs.

We explore how open repositories are deploying bot-mitigation strategies while simultaneously piloting AI to enrich metadata and evidence open research practices. Discussion extends to automating or augmenting peer review, generating lay summaries, and deploying AI data stewards to draft Data Management Plans or produce data papers through automated dataset analysis. 

Underpinning all these themes is a tension between efficiency and integrity. The session closes with a discussion on ethical and responsible AI use in research — what guardrails, disclosure norms, and community standards are needed to ensure AI serves science rather than eroding trust in the scholarly record.

(This abstract was generated by AI.)

Managing and sharing sensitive research data.

Bogdan Metes, Open Research Officer (Research Data)

In your research, do you use data obtained from human participants? Are you worried about the expectations that you share data which could possibly reidentify your participants? Is there tension between keeping your data safe and meeting funder and publisher expectations, and generally open research standards?;

This interactive talk will provide information about the steps you must take throughout the research cycle, form the planning stages, through the active research stages, to dissemination, to ensure that both you and your participants are protected. With a focus on transparency, consent and anonymisation techniques, this session will provide examples and give you time to engage in practical exercises and to ask questions related to sensitive research data.

Play Your Way: Games for Open Research 

Heather McKenna, Natalie Clark, Holly Farn - Library Research Services.

Curious or confused about Open Research? Join members of the Library Research Services team for a fun and informative session of games! Featuring a board game we have developed for researchers, navigating Open Research across an academic’s career, alongside a hands-on Lego activity to explore the principles of data reproducibility. This is an interactive session, but anyone interested is more than welcome to come and watch.

Using FAIRSharing.com to strengthen your research data management

Amanda Boll, Head of Library Research Services.

Effective research data management (RDM) relies on selecting the right standards, repositories, and policies—but navigating these options can be challenging. FAIRSharing.com is a curated, community‑driven resource that helps researchers, librarians, and data stewards quickly identify the most appropriate data standards and repositories for their discipline. Join this hands-on workshop. This hands‑on workshop will introduce participants to the structure and features of FAIRsharing. Attendees will leave with practical skills for integrating FAIRsharing into their RDM workflows and for guiding researchers toward more transparent, reusable, and FAIR‑aligned data practices.

Open science and the REF research environment.

Gavin Stewart, Reader in Interdisciplinary Evidence, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences.

This exploratory workshop will bring together researchers, professional staff, and research leaders to map, connect, and strengthen open science activity across the university. While open science practices—such as data sharing, pre-registration, reproducibility, and open methods—are increasingly visible, much of this activity is currently fragmented and often driven by PhD students and early career researchers (ECRs). This workshop aims to harness that distributed energy and translate it into coordinated, institutionally supported approaches. The primary objective is to develop a shared foundation for embedding open science within the university’s research culture, with particular relevance to the REF environment statement across both social and natural sciences. The workshop will (1) make the case for open science as a core component of research excellence and integrity, (2)identify and map ongoing activities, initiatives, and informal practices already in place, and (3) co-develop practical mechanisms for coordination, support, and recognition.

Room 1.07 

Closing reception (with drinks and nibbles)