On Tuesday 16th June 2026 Newcastle University held its second open research conference, which built upon the success of the inaugural conference in 2025. In response to feedback from the last conference this year we provided more in-depth workshops and training sessions. The conference aimed to deliver an introduction to open research skills and practical tools, as well as demonstrations of best practice. Discussions included open research in the context of generative Artificial intelligence and replication in social science.
The conference was deliberately cross-disciplinary and staff and postgraduate attendees came from engineering, humanities and social sciences, medical sciences and professional services indicating a growing interest in open research practices across university disciplines. We saw both new and familiar faces and welcomed our first external workshop lead. A welcoming address was given by Candy Rowe, Dean of Research Culture and Strategy.
For the second year running, the conference organisers (Newcastle University’s UKRN Local Network Leads) wish to extend their gratitude towards open research champions and colleagues from library research services who delivered workshops and helped with promotion and organisation.
The most popular session of the day was ‘Play Your Way: Games for Open Research,’ where participants took part in interactive activities designed to introduce key open research concepts in a fun and engaging way. The games feature a board game navigating Open Research across an academic’s career, and a Lego activity to explore the principles of data reproducibility, both of which were developed at Newcastle University.
Feedback from attendees has been positive and has also provided valuable suggestions for future events. We hope that attendees were able to make new connections, learn about new tools to help them be more open and discuss any shared challenges. The conference also acted as an opportunity to promote the work of the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) at Newcastle University and the monthly ReproducibiliTea journal club.
Details of the sessions and workshops are given below and slides can be accessed here.
Workshops
- Applied replication for data skills: Chris Moreh, Lecturer in Sociology.
- Open access beyond the traditional: Heather McKenna, Open Research Officer (Open Access) & Jack Burns, Open Research Co-ordinator.
- Open research and AI: Delphine Doucet, Research and Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of Sunderland & Clement Lee, Lecturer in Statistics.
- Managing and sharing sensitive research data: Bogdan Metes, Open Research Officer (Research Data).
- Play your way- Games for Open Research: Heather McKenna, Natalie Clark, Holly Farn, Library Research Services.
- Using FAIRSharing.com to strengthen your research data management: Amanda Boll, Head of Library Research Services.
- Roundtable discussion on the University’s Open Research provision: Nicola Howe, Methodologist & Steve Boneham, Open Research Training & Development Officer.
To learn more about open research at Newcastle University (including training provision), the UKRN Local Network, or the ReproducibiliTea journal club, visit www.ncl.ac.uk/openresearch.
Posted on behalf of Clement Lee and Nicola Howe (UKRN Local Network Leads)