OxCIN Open Science Ambassador’s Awards

It’s time to reflect on the past year: did you practice, promote, or advance open science in some way? Apply for the Open OxCIN Awards!

📅 Award Ceremony:
The awards will be presented at the OxCIN United on the 25th March at 12pm in the FMRIB Annexe and online.

Contents

2026 Award Winners

Student Category

Levi Kumle
Department of Experimental Psychology

For consistently demonstrating an outstanding commitment to open research practices through tool development, empirical research outputs, training, advocacy, and citizenship work.
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Levi has demonstrated innovation and transparency skills through being the lead author and developer of the mixedpower package (Kumle, L., et al. (2021), Estimating power in (generalized) linear mixed models: an open introduction and tutorial in R. Behavior Research Methods), an influential and widely used resource for conducting robust power analyses in R. Additionally, Levi has developed an openly accessible tutorial for running virtual reality experiments online with fully reproducible workflows, tools, and example code which will be released soon to help lower technical barriers for remote VR research (OSF | Running Virtual Reality Experiments Online: A Brief Introduction and Tutorial). Furthermore, Levi’s empirical publications are accompanied by open, well-documented analysis scripts ensuring transparency and reusability. Aside from research outputs, Levi has invested deeply in open-science capacity-building through working as a teaching assistant and co-developing course materials that emphasize reproducible coding and robust statistical practices, leading both local and international workshops and training sessions on open research practices, and serving as a preprint moderator for PsyArXiv.

ERC Category

Gaurav Bhalerao
Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences

For enhancing the impact of brain imaging data through open research practices, alongside advancing open research culture both within their department and across the wider university.
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Gaurav has worked to enable reuse and reproducibility through openly sharing neuroimaging workflows, such as adapting UK Biobank brain MRI processing pipelines for Dementia Platform UK (DPUK) cohorts and remote analysis environments. Additionally, Gaurav developed and shared open-source codes with trained machine learning models for automated quality control of brain MRI scan, thereby supporting transparent method comparison and improving robustness in clinical neuroimaging research. Furthermore, Gaurav has converted Brain Health Clinic neuroimaging datasets to the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) standard and made them available via the DPUK platform. Aside from neuroimaging work, Gaurav has invested in strengthening open research culture across the university by working as a local network lead for Reproducible Research Oxford (RROx) and contributing to strategic planning of delivering training and community events focused on open science, reproducibility, and sustainable research. Gaurav’s colleagues have commented on how proactive and passionate Gaurav is about open science and highlight Gaurav’s work in supporting members of their group to release open access code.

2026 Commendations

Student Category

Katrijn Schruers
Department of Experimental Psychology

For enhancing open research culture through openly sharing code and analysis pipelines, fostering a culture of openness and reproducibility.

James Bacon
Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences

For the development of an open-source and freely available tool to measure the Gradient Impulse Response Function (GIRF).

Sungjun Cho
Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences

For contributions towards creating open source software tools and for work enhancing open research culture.

Early Career Researcher Category

Mats van Es
Department of Psychiatry

For the development and dissemination of the open-source osl-ephys toolbox for analysis of M/EEG data.

Danielle Hewitt
Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences

For embedding open research practices into a piece of inclusive research culture work.

What are the open science awards

Why are we doing this?

We want to recognise and celebrate individuals and groups who practice, promote, and advance open science at OxCIN and beyond.

What to do?

Anyone can nominate themselves or someone else for the award by completing a short form. We ask you to answer a few questions about the nominee and to briefly describe the open science activity (max 300 words). The deadline to submit is at 12 noon 12th January 2026. 

How to nominate

Anyone connected to OxCIN who has practiced, promoted, or advanced open science which resulted in some output or activity. This output/activity is understood in a very broad sense with an aim to enable reproducibility and transparency of research methods and findings, and to improve research culture. We welcome submissions from: 

  • Students (undergraduate and graduate) 

This could be an activity undertaken as part of your studies or dissertation or something that you have organised for other students or members of your group/the wider community. This includes activities carried out in conjunction with academic staff. 

  • Early career staff (self-defined) 

This could be an activity initiated and led by an early career researcher / staff member. (If you think of yourself as an early career researcher / staff member, including working as a junior member of core staff / professional services).  

  • PIs and groups 

This could be an activity that is spearheaded by a PI or an activity that involves most or all members of a PI’s group. 

  • Other contributions (including professional services staff / core staff / technicians) 

This could be an activity carried out as part of a collaborative project or targeted at the wider community, including facilitating, administering, applying, or otherwise enabling open science practices at OxCIN.     

Selection criteria

Considering that this is the first year of the awards, the selection criteria are still somewhat in development. Essentially, we would like to see concrete evidence of an output or activity where you practiced, promoted or advanced open science at OxCIN and beyond. If you have any questions, please reach out to open@oxcin.ox.ac.uk.

Timeline

  • 01 Dec 2025: submissions open
  • 12 Jan 2026: submissions close
  • end of Jan 2026: awards announcement