Community Led Infrastructure
Answer
The Office for Open Research supports a wide range of community-level initiatives which underpin the global open research movement, and support the embedding of local Open Research practices at The University of Manchester.
We support the development of more sustainable, diverse and equitable open research infrastructure. This is achieved by allocating a portion of our budgets to community infrastructure, and through the work of the University's wider research community.
This article details platforms developed by members of the global research community which are supported financially by The Office for Open Research.
To find out about other open research systems to which we have secured access for Manchester researchers, see Open Research systems.
ORCID
ORCID stands for ‘Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier’. ORCID enables transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their contributions, and their affiliations by providing a unique, persistent identifier for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities.
As a lead member of the UK ORCID consortium, The University of Manchester helps to sustain this global, not-for-profit organisation which has become an essential part of the global research infrastructure.
Open Library of the Humanities
The University of Manchester is a Gold Supporting Member of The Open Library of Humanities (OLH), a charitable organisation dedicated to publishing Open Access scholarship with no author-facing Article Processing Charges (APCs).
Funded by an international consortium of libraries, OLH aims to support and extend open access to scholarship in the Humanities.
OSF
The Open Science Framework is a free, open-source online tool that connects and supports the research workflow, enabling scientists to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their research.
The Office for Open Research has established an institutional membership with OSF to support the sustainability of this platform, and to secure premium support for University of Manchester staff and students interested in using the tool. Find out more
PsyArXiv
PsyArXiv is a preprint repository for psychological research. It was established in 2016 through a collaboration between The Society for Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS), responsible for managing the archive; and The Center for Open Science (COS), responsible for powering PsyArXiv’s infrastructure.
The University of Manchester is an Institutional Member of PsyArXiv, providing financial and strategic support.
PLoS Community Action Publishing (CAP)
The University of Manchester is a member of Public Library of Science (PLoS)’ Community Action Publishing (CAP) model which, like Open Library of the Humanities, aims to increase equity in Open Access publishing by eliminating author APCs. The PLoS CAP enables the publisher’s most selective Open Access journals to operate sustainably whilst being truly open to read as well as open to publish.
Opening the Future
The University of Manchester is a member of Opening the Future, an initiative founded by Liverpool University Press and Central European University (CEU) Press, Opening the Future provides a collective subscription model to the backlist content of university presses, in order to fund the publication of frontlist book titles on an Open Access basis.
Opening the Future represents an innovative and scalable business model that avoids the use of Book Processing Charges (BPCs) as part of a goal to demonstrate a route to sustainable Open Access for longform publications, the foundational research outputs of Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines.
Engaging Science, Technology, and Society (ESTS)
The University of Manchester is a supporting member of ESTS, a Diamond Open Access journal published by the non-profit Society for Social Studies of Science. Investment from supporting members enables the journal to publish research in the area of social studies of science, technology, and medicine without the need for authors to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC), increasing access and equity.
RDMKit
The University of Manchester’s own research community is working to develop innovative resources which address open research challenges at the disciplinary level. An example is the Elixir Research Data Management Kit (RDMKit), designed to help life scientists better manage their research data following the FAIR Principles. Based on the various steps of the data lifecycle, the RDMKit is recommended in the Horizon Europe Program Guide as the ‘resource for Data Management guidelines and good practices for the Life Sciences.’