Every day, Griffith researchers are helping to shape a better world through their impactful research. 

New discoveries and insights produce the greatest impact when they are shared as widely and as freely as possible. Impact can be further enhanced when other researchers are able to build on and validate this work, if the original research was conducted transparently and therefore reproducibly.   

These principles—accessibility, transparency and reproducibility—are at the heart of open research. Regardless of your discipline or the stage of your career, you can make at least some of your research more open and thus more impactful.  

Here’s how: 

  • Deposit a copy of your work in our institutional repository Griffith Research Online, which makes your work more discoverable and accessible to readers worldwide. GRO has already clocked up more than 20 million downloads since 2017, so there is a massive audience out there for open research. 
  • Where possible, share the data underpinning your research, allowing others to build on and validate your work. Library staff can advise on where to store it.  
  • Choose a license for your research outputs and creative works that permits repurposing and remixing. Library staff can provide advice on licensing and copyright. 
  • Describe all code or software used in a study in a way that supports reproducible research, and share the code openly, if possible, through one of the many code repositories online.  
  • Register study protocols before conducting your research—this can result in useful feedback that can improve your methods, and also notifies others of the upcoming study.  
  • Publish your work in a reputable open access journal as this maximises the opportunity for exposure. 
  • Encourage and support other researchers to engage in open research practices. 

You may worry that making your work open will mean a lot of extra work. The opposite is true—working openly and reproducibly, documenting everything from the start, is far more efficient, and helps you meet funder requirements much more easily. As Sandve et al. state: “... good habits of reproducibility may actually turn out to be a time-saver in the longer run.”  

For more information on finding your path to more open and impactful research, contact a library specialist.