Strategy and governance

Our goal is to foster a healthier culture at the University through the wider adoption of Open Research practices in line with our Position Statement on Open Research.

Our vision

The Office for Open Research is the result of one of the most significant investments in the future of publishing, data and open knowledge by any UK university.

We have formed the Open Research Service Partnership to deliver a co-ordinated response to the Open Research agenda. This will enhance the support already provided to researchers, accelerating the uptake of Open Research practices.

The formation of the Office creates a focal point for Open Research activity at The University of Manchester, preparing us to be at the leading edge of this global agenda. Our Open Research Accelerator Fund will be providing seed funding, helping us to build on the momentum of Open Research activity already thriving at The University of Manchester.

We will also be encouraging open dialogue with the research community, enabling us to clearly define our Open Research ambitions and account for the differing needs of research communities.

Our five strategic priorities

Open Research skills

Raising awareness about open research and its potential benefits, we have developed the Open Research Skills Framework, and are working on incorporating Open Research skills training into existing programmes.

Open Research communities

Dialogue with the research community will be crucial to building communities of practice, enabling researchers to effectively engage with their peer groups and with open research in their own disciplines.

Open Research recognition

Open Research Practices must be better recognised and incentivised through evaluation systems in order to create a virtuous cycle of increased uptake.

Open Research workflows

The Office for Open Research supports all efforts to make code, data, and computational environments openly available, including the use of open-source programming languages and software in research.

Open and FAIR research outputs

Making the University's research as re-usable as possible whilst achieving impact is incompatible with unsustainable publishing models that place research behind a paywall. Sharing research data which is Findable, Accessible Interoperable and Reusable is one of our principles of Open Research.