OpenUP project (OPENing UP new methods, indicators and tools for peer review, dissemination of research results, and impact measurement), coordinated and led by PPMI, has now been successfully finished. This Horizon 2020 funded project aimed to identify and determine ground-breaking mechanisms, processes and tools for peer-review for all types of research results; to explore, identify and classify innovative dissemination mechanisms with an outreach aim towards businesses and industry, education, and society; and to analyse a set of novel indicators that assess the impact of research results and correlate them of channels of dissemination.
The first year of the project was dedicated to primary research such as desk research, landscape scans, surveys of researchers across Europe, and interviews with stakeholders, regarding the three key project topics - peer review, research dissemination and alternative metrics. The second part of the project was dedicated to piloting activities and validation of initial findings. OpenUP also organised a high-level expert workshop in Brussels and several validation workshops to bring all the relevant stakeholders together to discuss and provide feedback for OpenUP’s interim results.
Over the course of the project, OpenUP’s team developed frameworks that define methods, roles and processes of open peer review, innovative research dissemination and impact measurement methods, and validated proposed mechanisms through pilots involving researchers from different scientific communities. Project consortium also built the OpenUP Hub - an interactive knowledge-base that hosts information, toolkits and guidelines on peer review, research dissemination and alternative metrics, and derived practical policy recommendations and actions to be used by the EU, national and institutional policymakers and other stakeholders. Through an array of engagement activities such as Open Science Fair 2017 and the Final OpenUP conference, the project had a significant impact on academic communities, researchers, publishers and funders, not excluding the general public. OpenUP project was also PPMI’s first finalised Horizon 2020 grant, which allowed to build up a solid internal know-how on grant management.
