Implementing Systems-level Reform: Institutional Change towards Transparency
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Onie, Sandersan
In recent years, the academic community has evaluated the research ecosystem and identified key issues which undermine the trustworthiness of its output. With it, myriad suggestions, and solutions. Despite this, change is slow and well-meaning initiatives often have adverse reactions. This is because the process of determining a vision for an ideal research system and implementing it are altogether different challenges. Furthermore, research systems in Asia, Latin America, and Africa are substantially more heterogenous than in North America, Europe, and Australia. For example, in many countries in the Global South, research culture is still labile due to the sudden introduction of policies and unique incentive structures which champion research quantity .Thus many ideas generated in one research system do not translate well and vice versa. The question becomes given reach region's unique state, how do we champion process and institutional transparency? In this talk I discuss the different factors that affect how we approach each country, including but not limited to existing policies, centralisation of research authority, and inherent cultural beliefs. Further, I outline strategies for reform using Indonesia as an example, from a grassroots movement to influencing national infrastructure and policy.
 Hi everyone, welcome to my talk. My name is Sandra Sinoni and I'm giving a talk titled Implementing Systems Double Reform, Institutional Change Towards Transparency. I'd like to start off and mention that over the past 10 years, the scientific landscape has completely changed. If we compare ourselves to where we were 10 years ago, it would be unrecognizable. We've had so many new ideas, so many new ways of looking at how we do science. We have so many new suggestions on how this is going to work. We're designing a credible research system for all of us. The thing is, we have to remember that we cannot stop at ideation. We can talk around the table for as long as we'd like and we can come up with many different ideas, but if the end goal is to actually implement these systems and to have research system produce credible research that will actually benefit society, then we have to remember that the end goal is actually implementation, not just ideation. It's difficult because determining the vision for a research system, a credible one, and implementing it are altogether different challenges. In the same way, research doesn't exist in a vacuum. Whenever we start talking about implementation, there are all these factors and issues that we need to consider. For example, there are existing research cultures. Whatever we implement, whatever initiative we have isn't going to sit on top of our research culture. It's going to interact and integrate with it. So we have to remember things such as centralization of authority because a lot of research cultures outside of North America, Australia, as well as Europe have more centralization of resources and authority to the government rather than on an institutional or research level. In fact, there's more power gaps or more power scaling as you go up in the ranks and that will affect who develops and determines what policies as well. On that note, we have to remember that not everyone has the same autonomy. If you're in a research culture that pays you very little wages and you're relying on publications to survive or to progress your career, then you may not have as much capacity to change to research practices that may yield more credible research but might take you away from the KPIs. Number three is research integrity, where we have to remember that any good meaning research system or limitation when interacting with research integrity, if we don't have the underlying research values or integrity, it's not going to turn out well. For example, the notion of preprints. Well, in Indonesia, if you upload something to a preprint server, it gets indexed as part of your KPI. Now, there are several cases where researchers and lecturers would have their students upload each and every one of their assignments with the lecturer as a co-author in order to bolster their research portfolio. So we need to also assess, can these well-meaning initiatives go wrong or there's not the underlying research integrity there? As well as the lability of research culture, where in a lot of places, they've just recently implemented research policies and a lot of them are updating it quite quickly. China is an example of this, where they're constantly updating their research policies, quite drastic measures and effect, in fact. And so how do researchers react to this? If the culture is always labelled and never setting, how is a new initiative coming in going to behave? Could it be easier to implement because they're already implementing new things as it is? Or in fact, even if it's easy to uptake, is it going to be more difficult to actually set and be sustainable in the long run because none of the research cultures are actually setting due to the lability of the policies? And we have to consider all of this. For example, there was the transparency audits that happened some time ago. And a lot of people, especially from a research culture in North America, Australia and in Europe, said this isn't going to work for us. No, absolutely not. They didn't even say this isn't going to work for us. They said this isn't going to work. This is not the way to do things. But consider a research culture where there's very little space for researchers to be able to move into habitonomy. And in fact, everything is guided by top-down policy where there's more centralization of authority. In fact, the transparency audit could be critical to developing a research system that's credible there. And so policy makers' priorities are another important thing to consider because there could be severe pushback. A couple of years ago, there was this huge controversy where the Indonesian government behind closed doors, of course, was pushing back against open science. Why? Because turning out journals was part of their KPI at the time. And they saw open access as an enemy to this, thinking, well, if you can publish things up and put it up without being peer reviewed, then why do we need all these journals? And so they pushed back against open access as well as open science, thinking that open science only consisted of open access. So I'm not saying that they're right. I'm saying we need to be cognizant of what their priorities are and how they're likely to react to new incoming initiatives. And there's also a large disconnect between umbrella-level networks with grassroots-level researchers. For example, UNESCO recently released their open science recommendations. One of the feedback from the different countries are like, this is really difficult for us to implement this. Because very so often, there are lots and lots and lots of networks now everywhere that we're seeing to improve transparency and credibility. But very often, there's this big disconnect with the typical researcher who may not have an audience or access to these networks and yet are told to implement the things that they're recommending. And remember that the goals of every researcher, every institution, every system can produce credible science, regardless of the journey there. And so they might take different pathways, but that's the end goal. So what can we do to implement strategic change? The number one is we have to navigate competing priorities. For example, in 2019, some colleagues in there, we wanted to create a conference, an event that could reform Indonesia's science. But we knew that there was pushback against the government. So what did we do? We had an open science conference without mentioning the word open science even once in any of the marketing materials. Instead, we knew that their parties was to move science forward in the region. And so we framed it in terms of, okay, we're going to create a conference to upskill all the researchers. But we know the way to get there is through open science. And so we had all the sessions talk about transparency and research integrity. As a result, we developed good networks with parts of the government, and we're even invited to lead science briefs, science policy briefs for them. And so by understanding what the different priorities are, we'll be able to implement these initiatives well. We also have to understand the priorities on each level institutionally for researchers. Are they able to dedicate thoughts to creating good science, or are they just trying to survive? That allows us to work in the system a bit better. Number two is be sensitive to culture. Did you know a lot of cultures in Asia won't tell you if they disagree with you? And so that's why a lot of researchers from outside find it frustrating because they're trying to communicate, but they're completely different cultures. And so we have to know the people because science is a social enterprise. And in the end, it's not about the system, it's about the people in the system. And by understanding the culture, what does the country's culture prioritize? What aspects of open science? What aspects of transfer? What aspects of integrity? What language would they use? We'll be able to implement these initiatives a lot better. Number three, we have to co-design, not transfer. A lot of the time, the initiatives are designed and implemented by one group for a completely different group, whether we see it ideated in the global north and trying to implement implemented global south, or we see it ideated and implemented by the UN level organizations, or even government or institutional, and yet the grassroots researchers are living in a completely different world. It doesn't work that way. And we wonder why a lot of aspects of open science and research integrity have had slow uptake in areas outside of North America, Australia and Europe, because it wasn't co-designed or ideated there. And so the way to do this is we need to be able to bring everyone to the table to design these policies together, to design these ideas together, because very so often, we don't realize that the ideas we're coming up with, the ideas that we think about, are perfect for our research context without understanding how different it is out there. And so there are many different ways we can do this. For example, one of the events that I'm leading is an event called Advancing Science in Southeast Asia for the October this year. And in one of the sessions, we're actually bringing together UN level organizations such as INXA, International Science Council, and we're having talks with UNESCO, along with institutions in each country, along with the grassroots researchers to come together and to design policy documents together, because if we can integrate the ideation and implementation, then the whole process becomes a lot smoother. And so there are many different things we need to consider. And I'd like to leave everyone with this thought. For every idea we have pertaining to science as a whole, we must consider in which context it will work, because the goal is an ideation. The goal is implementation. Thanks so much for coming to the talk. I'm looking forward to hearing the discussion and the questions. Thanks everyone.
 Hi everyone, welcome to my talk. My name is Sandra Sinoni and I'm giving a talk titled  Implementing Systems Double Reform, Institutional Change Towards Transparency.  I'd like to start off and mention that over the past 10 years, the scientific landscape has  completely changed. If we compare ourselves to where we were 10 years ago, it would be  unrecognizable. We've had so many new ideas, so many new ways of looking at how we do science.  We have so many new suggestions on how this is going to work. We're designing a credible research  system for all of us. The thing is, we have to remember that we cannot stop at ideation.  We can talk around the table for as long as we'd like and we can come up with many different ideas,  but if the end goal is to actually implement these systems and to have research system produce  credible research that will actually benefit society, then we have to remember that the  end goal is actually implementation, not just ideation. It's difficult because determining  the vision for a research system, a credible one, and implementing it are altogether different  challenges. In the same way, research doesn't exist in a vacuum. Whenever we start talking  about implementation, there are all these factors and issues that we need to consider.  For example, there are existing research cultures. Whatever we implement, whatever initiative we have  isn't going to sit on top of our research culture. It's going to interact and integrate with it.  So we have to remember things such as centralization of authority because a lot of research  cultures outside of North America, Australia, as well as Europe have more centralization of  resources and authority to the government rather than on an institutional or research level.  In fact, there's more power gaps or more power scaling as you go up in the ranks and that will  affect who develops and determines what policies as well. On that note, we have to remember that  not everyone has the same autonomy. If you're in a research culture that pays you very little  wages and you're relying on publications to survive or to progress your career, then you may  not have as much capacity to change to research practices that may yield more credible research  but might take you away from the KPIs. Number three is research integrity, where we have to  remember that any good meaning research system or limitation when interacting with research  integrity, if we don't have the underlying research values or integrity, it's not going to  turn out well. For example, the notion of preprints. Well, in Indonesia, if you upload something to  a preprint server, it gets indexed as part of your KPI. Now, there are several cases where  researchers and lecturers would have their students upload each and every one of their  assignments with the lecturer as a co-author in order to bolster their research portfolio.  So we need to also assess, can these well-meaning initiatives go wrong or there's not the underlying  research integrity there? As well as the lability of research culture, where in a lot of places,  they've just recently implemented research policies and a lot of them are updating it quite  quickly. China is an example of this, where they're constantly updating their research policies,  quite drastic measures and effect, in fact. And so how do researchers react to this? If the culture  is always labelled and never setting, how is a new initiative coming in going to behave? Could it be  easier to implement because they're already implementing new things as it is? Or in fact,  even if it's easy to uptake, is it going to be more difficult to actually set and be sustainable in  the long run because none of the research cultures are actually setting due to the lability of the  policies? And we have to consider all of this. For example, there was the transparency audits  that happened some time ago. And a lot of people, especially from a research culture in North  America, Australia and in Europe, said this isn't going to work for us. No, absolutely not. They  didn't even say this isn't going to work for us. They said this isn't going to work. This is not  the way to do things. But consider a research culture where there's very little space for researchers  to be able to move into habitonomy. And in fact, everything is guided by top-down policy where  there's more centralization of authority. In fact, the transparency audit could be critical  to developing a research system that's credible there. And so policy makers' priorities are  another important thing to consider because there could be severe pushback. A couple of years ago,  there was this huge controversy where the Indonesian government behind closed doors, of course, was  pushing back against open science. Why? Because turning out journals was part of their KPI at  the time. And they saw open access as an enemy to this, thinking, well, if you can publish things up  and put it up without being peer reviewed, then why do we need all these journals? And so they  pushed back against open access as well as open science, thinking that open science only consisted  of open access. So I'm not saying that they're right. I'm saying we need to be cognizant of what  their priorities are and how they're likely to react to new incoming initiatives. And there's  also a large disconnect between umbrella-level networks with grassroots-level researchers.  For example, UNESCO recently released their open science recommendations. One of the feedback  from the different countries are like, this is really difficult for us to implement this.  Because very so often, there are lots and lots and lots of networks now everywhere that we're seeing  to improve transparency and credibility. But very often, there's this big disconnect with  the typical researcher who may not have an audience or access to these networks and yet are told to  implement the things that they're recommending. And remember that the goals of every researcher,  every institution, every system can produce credible science, regardless of the journey  there. And so they might take different pathways, but that's the end goal. So what can we do to  implement strategic change? The number one is we have to navigate competing priorities.  For example, in 2019, some colleagues in there, we wanted to create a conference, an event that  could reform Indonesia's science. But we knew that there was pushback against the government. So  what did we do? We had an open science conference without mentioning the word open science even  once in any of the marketing materials. Instead, we knew that their parties was to move science  forward in the region. And so we framed it in terms of, okay, we're going to create a conference to  upskill all the researchers. But we know the way to get there is through open science. And so we had  all the sessions talk about transparency and research integrity. As a result, we developed  good networks with parts of the government, and we're even invited to lead science briefs,  science policy briefs for them. And so by understanding what the different priorities are,  we'll be able to implement these initiatives well. We also have to understand the priorities on  each level institutionally for researchers. Are they able to dedicate thoughts to creating good  science, or are they just trying to survive? That allows us to work in the system a bit better.  Number two is be sensitive to culture. Did you know a lot of cultures in Asia won't tell you if  they disagree with you? And so that's why a lot of researchers from outside find it frustrating  because they're trying to communicate, but they're completely different cultures.  And so we have to know the people because science is a social enterprise. And in the end,  it's not about the system, it's about the people in the system. And by understanding the culture,  what does the country's culture prioritize? What aspects of open science? What aspects of  transfer? What aspects of integrity? What language would they use? We'll be able to implement these  initiatives a lot better. Number three, we have to co-design, not transfer. A lot of the time,  the initiatives are designed and implemented by one group for a completely different group,  whether we see it ideated in the global north and trying to implement implemented global south,  or we see it ideated and implemented by the UN level organizations, or even government  or institutional, and yet the grassroots researchers are living in a completely different world.  It doesn't work that way. And we wonder why a lot of aspects of open science and research integrity  have had slow uptake in areas outside of North America, Australia and Europe, because it wasn't  co-designed or ideated there. And so the way to do this is we need to be able to bring everyone to  the table to design these policies together, to design these ideas together, because very so often,  we don't realize that the ideas we're coming up with, the ideas that we think about, are perfect  for our research context without understanding how different it is out there. And so there are many  different ways we can do this. For example, one of the events that I'm leading is an event called  Advancing Science in Southeast Asia for the October this year. And in one of the sessions,  we're actually bringing together UN level organizations such as INXA, International Science  Council, and we're having talks with UNESCO, along with institutions in each country, along with  the grassroots researchers to come together and to design policy documents together, because if we  can integrate the ideation and implementation, then the whole process becomes a lot smoother.  And so there are many different things we need to consider. And I'd like to leave everyone with  this thought. For every idea we have pertaining to science as a whole, we must consider in which  context it will work, because the goal is an ideation. The goal is implementation. Thanks so  much for coming to the talk. I'm looking forward to hearing the discussion and the questions.  Thanks everyone.
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