The HRB is helping to drive this agenda at a national level. We fully endorse the National Framework and will work closely in partnership with other stakeholders to prepare the National Action Plan. 

According to Patricia Clarke, Programme Manager at the HRB and co-chair of the National Open Research Forum;  
‘The National Framework is a clear statement of intent by the Irish research community to take practical steps to embed open research in Ireland and to ensure the research system as a whole moves in a common direction.  We would encourage health researchers to fully engage with the national planning exercise later this year which will define practical implementation steps’.  

Indeed, the HRB has already been very proactive in implementing many of the principles described. For example, we mandate open access for peer reviewed publications resulting from our funded research and our HRB Open Research publishing platform, offers an innovative approach for HRB-grantees to publish their research in a transparent, timely and cost-effective manner.

The HRB recognises that delivering more open research processes involves system thinking as well as a change in research culture and behaviour. With this in mind the HRB has co-chaired the NORF approach with the Higher Educations Authority over the past two years, working closely with Irish partners to collate the ideas emerging from a wide variety of ‘open’ agendas that are happening at a local, national, EU and international level.  

You can read more about how the HRB is driving change in Open Research in a recent blog on HRB Open Research.