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Spotlight: The UK Reproducibility Network
This week’s open science spotlight is on an organisation working on the structural side of everything we’ve been discussing: the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN).
UKRN is a national, peer-led consortium built to keep the UK at the forefront of world-leading research by tackling a specific question: what actually makes research robust and reproducible, and how do we get more of it?
They do this through meta-research into the factors behind poor reproducibility, training activities, and dissemination of best practice, working across disciplines from the arts and humanities to the physical and biomedical sciences. Rather than a single central body, UKRN operates as a distributed network, with grassroots Local Network Leads and formally committed Institutional Leads across UK universities. Oxford is one of them, with Tanita Casci as our Institutional Lead.
Their most recent output highlights many of the themes we’ve been discussing in our Monday messages. UKRN’s newly published STAR report, based on interviews, workshops, and policy analysis across 21 UK universities, found that institutions have built real infrastructure for open data – repositories, training, and data professionals – but sharing still remains the exception rather than the routine.
The report identifies the same barriers we’ve been discussing: workload pressures, limited recognition and reward, and unclear costing of the work involved. It concludes that further progress depends on clearer incentives and coordinated action across funders, institutions, and the wider research system.
It’s reassuring, in a way – the barriers aren’t imagined, and there’s a national network dedicated to closing the gap between capability and practice.
Explore more at ukrn.org.
28 September 2026 · Teresa Simoes Steyn
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