Survey data and focus group discussions from a study carried out in 2016, investigating researchers’ attitudes and behaviour towards open research, examining the sharing and reuse of research data, code, and open access publications. This research was carried out amongst researchers funded by the Wellcome Trust and the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Two online surveys gathered responses from 583 Wellcome Trust-funded researchers and 259 ESRC-funded researchers. Both surveys provided very detailed and granular quantifiable information to test existing perceptions and knowledge about these topics for a specific research community. Five focus group discussions with 22 participants explored the various topics in more detail. A study investigating the current attitudes and actual practices of researchers to open science, the barriers that inhibit or prevent researchers from practising open science; and the measures research funders can take to mitigate these barriers. For the purpose of this study “open science” is defined as the sharing and reuse of research outputs, in particular research data, articles and code. We will examine the sharing and reuse of these three categories of outputs separately. Through a mixed approach of an online survey and focus group discussions with researchers, we will investigate: (1) attitudes of researchers to the idea of open science, in particular sharing of data, sharing of code, sharing of papers and new models of publishing; (2) current open science practices applied by researchers; (3)barriers that inhibit or prevent researchers from practising open science in their research; (4) researcher-focused incentives and motivators for practising open science; (4) practical actions research funders can take to remove or mitigate barriers and maximise the opportunities for practising open science. The research will specifically target researchers funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Economic and Social Research Council, and will provide essential baseline information for the Wellcome Trust to inform their open science strategy.

The study consisted of two components: an online questionnaire survey performed via Qualtrics, using a combination of structured, coded questions and open-ended exploratory questions, with a representative sample of Wellcome-funded researchers; and five semi-structured focus-group meetings with Wellcome-funded researchers, with attendees selected from the survey or by separate invitation. Three focus groups were held face-to-face in London and two via video conference. Discussions were audio recorded and transcribed. The Wellcome Trust provided us with a list of 2281 current grant holders, representing the various grant types and disciplines they fund. These are researchers holding pre-doctoral studentships, early-career fellowships (postdoctoral), intermediate fellowships, senior and principal fellowships, investigator awards, as well as those receiving project funding, strategic funding, centres and infrastructure funding, equipment and resources funding as well as other personal support. ESRC provided us with a list of 927 current holders of research grants and fellowships. No holders of studentships were included in the list. For both populations, all grant holders in the lists were invited to participate in the online survey, with two reminders sent. The survey questionnaire was designed based on extensive literature review and input from experts on the project’s advisory committee. This means that much targeted questions were asked, based on data and code sharing practices, barriers and motivations well reported in literature, in order to obtain quantifiable agreement or disagreement with this existing knowledge across our population of researchers. The questionnaire contains single-response and multiple-response multiple-choice questions and Likert scales with a 5-scale response mode (ranging from ‘not at all important’ to ‘extremely important’). Each question also provided the ability for respondents to add other options or choices with free text descriptions. The questionnaire also has four open questions, asking researchers to give their views on the future of publishing and actions Wellcome (or other funders) could take to advance open research so researchers can make more data and code available. The survey was available online for a month: the survey for Wellcome Trust grant holders from 14 July until 15 August 2016; the survey for ESRC grant holders from 8 August until 12 September 2016. After the initial invitation, two reminders were sent: one two weeks after the launch of the survey, and the second reminder 4 days before the closure of the survey. For the Wellcome survey we received 583 responses (25.6% response rate). For the ESRC survey we received 259 responses (27.9% response rate). During analysis, researchers were categorized according to career stage (early career researchers versus senior investigators), location (UK based versus those working in Major Overseas Programmes), and research discipline (biomedical, clinical, population health, humanities and social sciences).