Institutionalizing Open Science in Mexico
Mexican institution, Ale Wall 2017.
In 2017, CEGA researchers mainstreamed transparent and reproducible research practices across Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública (INSP).
Growing awareness of researcher and publisher biases that have skewed bodies of literature have led institutions to look for guidance on how to improve the credibility of their research. CEGA’s Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) works with research and policy institutions to enable the production of transparent and reproducible science.
In 2017, BITSS delivered a workshop at INSP, a leading public health research institution in Mexico. The two-day workshop trained INSP research practitioners on tools and methods for transparent and reproducible science, including pre-registration, dynamic documents, and version control.
INSP has since established a transparency and reproducibility working group, with financial and technical support from BITSS, that developed standard operating procedures for integrating reproducible science best practices into organizational workflows. In addition, the group developed modular coursework for inclusion in the INSP master’s program and has begun leading trainings for INSP researchers on open science resources and methods.
These institutional policies and norms will reach thousands of researchers and directly impact the rigor of public health research informing policy in Mexico and beyond.
