Montreal Neurological Institute - the first scientific institute to implement open science policy

Researchers have been increasingly supportive of the open science initiative, to increase the accessibility to and transparency of scientific knowledge. While government-funded initiatives such as the Human Genome Project have been open to sharing their data, McGill University’s Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) has become the first scientific institute to implement open science as a policy.   

On 21 January, Guy Rouleau, the director of MNI, announced that all the results and data of the research carried out by the institute will be made freely available at the earliest. Explaining the reason behind the experiment, Rouleau says that, “We think that it is a way to accelerate discovery and the application of neuroscience.”¹ The policy has a clear advantage: freely sharing data and results will ensure that there is no duplication of studies.

Most remarkable, though, is the institute’s decision of not filing for patents on any discoveries, and stating that all collaborators - irrespective of the institute or organization they may be affiliated to - would have to conform to the open science principles. Not pursuing patents could affect the licensing income the institute could have earned, but Rouleau believes that there are few benefits of patenting early stage science, and making that data available is the only way of ensuring further discoveries. “It comes down to what is the reason for our existence? It’s to accelerate science, not to make money,”² he states.

Brian Nosek, a psychologist and director of the Center for Open Science at the University of Virginia, says, “It’s clear they are looking to move the organization towards the ideals of science.”³ All of MNI’s staff, which includes about 670 people, supports the decision. The institute now plans to design relevant tools and infrastructure to ensure that all institutional units adhere to the data sharing guidelines as well as track the impact of their experimental initiative. 

Reference

1, 2, 3 Montreal institute going ‘open’ to accelerate science (accessed 25 January 2016)