ICOR promotes a new research communication paradigm 
Stratos
|   May 12, 2025
|   ICOR

In February, ICOR hosted a webinar with several leaders who are rethinking research sharing beyond the confines of the traditional journal article. There have been a number of meetings and workshops focused on the future of scholarly communication, publishing, and open science over the past year and ICOR is interested in knitting these ideas together to build convergence across the open science movement. 

The ICOR webinar emerged from progress made In December at the Janelia Research Campus, where a group of 41 Open Science and scholarly communications experts gathered with the aim of imagining a truly open and collaborative research ecosystem — a concrete, practical approach capable of measurement and incentivisation. 

Perspectives on new research communication paradigms emerging

The February 8th public meeting opened with background and context. David Stern and Jakob Voits of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) kicked off the session with a look at the flawed reward system of science, and how scholarly communications suffers when it plays into and perpetuates those misaligned incentives. Michele Avissar-Whiting, also of Howard Hughes, then provided an overview of the December session, and the vision that emerged there. 

At the center of the ICOR vision is an integrated, holistic scholarly communication model in which “research stacks” take the place of the traditional research article. A research stack contains all the building blocks of a scientific investigation: data, code, protocols, and information — everything a researcher might need to recreate or build upon a study. Under the model, research elements within the stack could be made public on a rolling basis, in the forms and formats in which they were generated and can most easily be reused. 

Following Avissar-Whiting’s overview of the research stacks approach, additional speakers addressed the issue from their particular perspectives:

  • Katie Corker of ASAPbio discussed how to drive change at scale by providing training to younger researchers
  • Veronqiue Kiermer of PLOS shared the publisher’s exploratory efforts to redefine publishing, which align closely with ICOR’s approach
  • Geoffrey Boulton of the International Science Council discussed the need to address and account for the exclusionary inequities and flaws in the current scholarly communications system, and ensure they aren’t duplicated in a new model

The ICOR community

First convened in 2020, ICOR is a collaborative community of Open Science stakeholders dedicated to finding commonalities and identifying opportunities to work together toward shared goals. A small-scale, siloed approach to Open Science has stalled progress in the past. By knitting together the diverse thinking and activities spread out across all the different Open Science initiatives, the ICOR strategy group hopes to create momentum toward meaningful change. Public meetings are a key component in that consensus-building.

→ Read more and watch video from the meeting on ICOR’s website

Get involved

The ICOR working group invites feedback and comments from the community, including researchers, institutions, funders, publishers, and service providers. To get involved: