Cambridge University Library awarded funding to explore 'openness' in the humanities and social sciences

Cambridge University Library has been awarded over £800,000 to investigate ways to encourage and embed innovative open research practices within humanities and social science (HSS) disciplines.
Funded by the Research England Development (RED) Fund, the Wellcome Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project Materialising Open Research Practices in the Humanities and Social Sciences (MORPHSS) will showcase what ‘openness’ could mean for HSS research and how it can benefit its researchers and institutions.
This interdisciplinary project led by Dr Samuel Moore (Scholarly Communication Specialist, UL) is a collaboration with Cambridge Digital Humanities, Coventry University, the University of Sheffield and the University of Southampton.

Open Research (sometimes referred to as Open Science) is understood as the practices which strive for research processes and outputs to be made accessible to all. The University of Cambridge actively supports open research with the Office of Scholarly Communication, based at Cambridge University Library, helping thousands of researchers to make their publications and data open. By breaking down barriers to knowledge exchange, multiple benefits of open practices have been identified, ranging from increased visibility and credibility for researchers to more equitable distribution of knowledge across the globe (1).
What does Open Research mean for the HSS sector?
There has been an increasing shift among funders, institutions, and the UK Government to incentivise the use of open practices in academic research. However, these practices are often more associated with STEM research practices and, as a result, do not always fit with the nuanced ways that HSS researchers author, peer review and share their work. MORPHSS responds to concerns that open practices do not serve HSS disciplines by exploring exactly what a more HSS-led approach to openness might be and how it can be adopted throughout HSS disciplines more broadly.
"Using a researcher-led approach comprising pilot studies, workshops and research networks, MORPHSS will investigate and present how research communities can take ownership of open research and shape it for their own disciplines.
By allowing researchers to lead the way, MORPHSS will demonstrate how a plurality of approaches to openness are needed to showcase the value of HSS research and encourage others to experiment with open practices for the benefit of their research and wider society."
Dr Samuel Moore, Project Lead
Dr Samuel Moore
Dr Samuel Moore
How will the project achieve its aims?
MORPHSS will collate a database of practices to recognise where ‘openness’ is already being effectively demonstrated in HSS, for example through collaborative annotations or different approaches to sharing working papers of draft results. As well as drawing on existing examples, innovative experimental approaches will be piloted to encourage open practices. The piloted programmes will focus on long-form scholarship (books), collaborative peer review and data sharing in the social sciences. A series of workshops will be hosted for researchers to feed into these programmes.
As a result of gathering and showcasing these case studies, MORPHSS will devise and implement strategies for materialising and sustaining these HSS-appropriate open practices. Moreover, the project will result in the design of a participatory research network to explore and advocate for these practices in the long term (The Open Research Network for the Humanities and Social Sciences).
By reinvigorating openness in the HSS sector to break down barriers to knowledge, MORPHSS will have a demonstrable impact on research in the UK and beyond.
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Header image: Historical Printing Room punches, reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.
