Over the past few decades, several reform movements have emerged across scholarly communication and academia. Open science, open access, efforts to reshape research culture, research assessment reform and growing discussions around trust in science are all trying to address genuine problems in how research is produced, evaluated, and communicated.
Yet despite their shared goals, these movements operate in parallel rather than in concert. The result is fragmentation, confusion and growing frustration among the very researchers these efforts are supposed to help.
The Misalignment Problem
At the heart of the issue is a basic misalignment. Open science asks a lot of researchers: sharing data, publishing preprints, engaging in transparent peer review, and adopting new publishing practices. These are all valuable contributions to the research ecosystem. But the academic incentive system (promotion criteria, funding decisions, hiring committees) still overwhelmingly rewards traditional outputs such as high-impact journal publications and grant income. The system asks researchers to invest time and energy in practices that it does not meaningfully reward. Until those incentives shift, many open science practices will remain dependent on goodwill rather than being embedded as the default. On the other hand, efforts to reform research assessment often propose broad changes without always offering clear, workable alternatives that institutions can implement with confidence.
The Disillusionment Problem
There is also a growing sense that many reform efforts are losing touch with the average researcher. While the intentions behind new initiatives are often admirable, they frequently translate into additional tasks, new compliance requirements, and unfamiliar workflows. From the researcher’s perspective, this can feel like yet another layer of administrative burden; one without clear benefits or recognition. Moreover, those involved in reform efforts are often not researchers, or have not been researchers for a long time, leading to further under-appreciation for the challenges and stresses that researchers face - particularly at different career stages. Theoretical understanding is no substitute for lived experience. Over time, this disconnect breeds disillusionment. Researchers may support the principles of reform but feel increasingly detached from the mechanisms designed to deliver it.
Why These Movements Need Each Other
The irony is that these reform movements are deeply interdependent. Open science cannot succeed without changes to research culture and incentives. Researchers cannot be expected to adopt open practices at scale if those practices are not recognised and rewarded. At the same time, conversations about research culture and incentives cannot be divorced from the question of trust. Efforts to rebuild trust in research, whether among the public, policymakers, or researchers themselves, depend on transparency, openness, and credible systems of evaluation. Open science, research culture reform, and trust are not separate problems but facets of the same challenge.
Linking the Movements
If these efforts are to succeed, they need to be connected more deliberately. One possible path forward is the formation of coalitions that bring together stakeholders across the research ecosystem; funders, publishers, institutions, infrastructure providers, and researchers themselves. But such coalitions must be broader and more inclusive than the current initiatives. Too often, the same small group of organisations and individuals dominate reform discussions. Expanding participation, especially among active researchers, is essential if these movements are to remain grounded in reality.
Moving Beyond Declarations
There is also a cultural shift needed within the reform community itself. The research world has become very good at producing declarations, statements, and aspirational manifestos. These documents can play a useful role in signalling intent and building consensus but increasingly they risk becoming a form of “active inaction”: visible expressions of commitment that substitute for the harder work of implementing change. Concerns have already been raised that organisations are simply “peacocking” such as signing up to declarations like DORA without implementing any real change.
If reform efforts are to maintain credibility, the focus needs to move beyond signing declarations and toward concrete action; changing incentives, redesigning evaluation systems, and aligning the structures that shape researcher behaviour. Less declaration, more accreditation and independently verified standards.
Build shared infrastructure, not parallel solutions
Another source of fragmentation is the proliferation of separate platforms, standards, and workflows developed by different actors in the reform landscape. Open science initiatives, publishing innovations, and assessment reforms often develop their own tools and reporting requirements, with little coordination. For researchers, this can mean navigating multiple systems and requirements that do not communicate with each other. Indeed, keeping up with an ever growing number of acronyms and requirements that are poorly, if at all, communicated is simply not feasible for researchers. Open Access is a prime example; few researchers actually understand the different "colours" of access, nor do they particularly care.
Greater collaboration around shared infrastructure could reduce this burden. Persistent identifiers, interoperable metadata, open standards, and reusable workflows can help ensure that efforts to improve transparency, evaluation, and publishing reinforce one another rather than compete. Infrastructure work is rarely as visible as declarations, but it is often where lasting change happens.
Put researchers at the centre of reform
Many reform initiatives are designed for researchers, but not often with them. If open science, assessment reform, and research culture initiatives are to succeed, active researchers need to be more than subjects. They need to be participants in designing the systems they are expected to use. This means involving researchers from a wider range of disciplines, career stages, and institutional contexts, including those working under the greatest constraints. Early-career researchers, researchers on short-term contracts, and those outside well-resourced institutions often experience the strongest effects of misaligned incentives, yet are underrepresented in reform discussions. Surveys and data based on active researchers already exist but are often under-or not-used to inform reform efforts. Grounding reform in the realities of everyday research is not only a matter of fairness but is essential for legitimacy.
Support experimentation, but evaluate outcomes
Reform in scholarly communication often proceeds through pilot projects, new platforms, and local initiatives. This experimentation is valuable, but it can also lead to fragmentation if lessons are not shared and successful approaches are not adopted more widely, or sunset efforts when they’re not supported by data. There is a need for more systematic evaluation of reform efforts to determine what changes researcher behaviour, what reduces burden, what improves quality, and what strengthens trust. Without this feedback, the landscape risks filling with well-intentioned initiatives that coexist without ever converging. Or worse, with an expanding number of initiatives that unintentionally cause harm to these movements by confusing researchers and diverting resources.
The ideas behind open science, research culture reform, and rebuilding trust in research remain important. The challenge now is not inventing new movements, but connecting the ones we already have and ensuring they work together to create meaningful change, grounded in evidence. Many efforts have stalled in recent years and this coming together may just be the catalyst needed to finally produce tangible change instead of repeated conversations.
Copyright © 2026 Jonny Coates. Distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
