DCU is committed to fostering Open Research to achieve our mission to advance knowledge, transform lives and shape a better future for our communities, our region, and the world. Open Research aims to increase openness, transparency and reproducibility across all parts of the research lifecycle. It is considered beneficial to all involved in the research process - funders, researchers, policymakers, and to society as a whole. 

This Open Research Statement has been informed by and aligns to wider policy frameworks developed by National Open Research Forum (NORF), Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) and the European University Association (EUA).  DCU encourages a culture of openness, transparency, and collaboration in research. We believe that applying these principles to research processes and outputs has strong benefits for research quality and impact, by improving reuse and reproducibility, and underpinning research integrity.  

The University aims to actively create and pursue opportunities to grow and foster a values-driven, pluralistic, multi-faceted approach towards open research across the disciplinary spectrum.  The University supports the academic freedom of researchers to pursue new knowledge, and to choose the means of dissemination, but within that free choice, the University encourages outputs of research and where appropriate the accompanying data to be ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’.

DCU is committed to the following actions to embed open research practices: 

• Training and development of our staff and students across all disciplines in open research practices
• Promoting open research through the reward and recognition of best practice
• Improving the discoverability and external engagement with our open research outputs
• Engaging with external stakeholders to promote open research practices globally
• Supporting open research infrastructure, systems, and processes to ensure the long-term sustainability of open research materials