Our ambition as a library is to go beyond being a service provider to work in partnership with our academic community to to co-curate, co-create and share knowledge that leads to greater understanding
Over the course of the Library vision for 2025 the Open Research Service have worked in partnership with our researcher colleagues to develop a range of services, systems, resources and training. By aiding the development of open research skills and practices, we are working towards more reproducible, accessible and rigorous research in partnership with our academic community.
Open ResearchIn September 2021 the Library opened it's Open Research and Engagement spaces. These flexible events spaces can host up to 70 people and contain technology to support a range of hybrid events. The spaces have been utilised to help to fulfil the Library's ambition to be a ‘Connected/Connector’ by offering a physical space to "bring our communities together to co-curate, co-create and share knowledge that leads to greater understanding, insight and innovation”. In particular, the spaces have allowed the library to develop our partnerships with our researcher community.
Our colleague Leah Burns presented at UKSG Conference 2025 on how the Library's Open Research spaces help foster an environment of Open Research and research partnership. The session highlights how the physical and virtual space of a library can shift to foster an environment of Open Research, of mutual aid between academics, and welcome non-traditional knowledge sharing.
Open Research spaces presentation
The spaces have hosted a range of events related to the university research culture activity, including the Institutions Research Culture Day, the launch of the Digital Humanities Research Centre, various departmental conferences, and monthly events for the Digital humanities forum and the PROSPR open science reproducibility journal club. The position of the spaces in the library confers neutrality, which makes the spaces ideally situated for collaborative or interdisciplinary events.
Our Library Festivals (2021,2022,2024) were celebrations of he work of Lancaster University, its Library and community partners. The festivals featured interactive exhibits, engaging activities, insightful talks, and live music from our communities.
Library Festival 2024
The spaces have enabled us to develop connections with various community's. These include inviting EDI groups to contribute to events such as Pride, and a variety of Exhibition's. The Library festivals in 2021, 2022, and 2024 promoted themes of community engagement, wellbeing and sustainability, as well as raising public awareness of and access to university research through a series of talks and exhibitions.
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A SafePod is a standardised safe setting that provides the necessary security for a researcher to access sensitive datasets from participating Data Centres across the UK. The location of the SafePod in the library in close proximity to the research engagement spaces provides a physical presence for our Open Research infrastructure, highlighting our Research Data Management services.
The “Reimagining Research Practices: Towards a Sustainable, Ethical, and Inclusive Future” project is a 2-year initiative funded by the Wellcome Trust, bringing together various departments and services within Lancaster University, including LICA, the Library, LEC, Psychology, and Research Services.
Within this interdisciplinary team, Prof Carlos Lopez-Galviz and Dr Nuri Kwon from ImaginationLancaster in LICA explore the inclusion perspective by working closely with Elaine Sykes and Louise Zambianchi at the Library, and two Education Fellows, Dan Craddock and Valerie Seymour. The project aims to explore and enhance our understanding of research practices to make them more inclusive and supportive of marginalised or disadvantaged communities.
To find out more contact Project Manager Catriona Gold: c.gold@lancaster.ac.uk
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Over the course of our Library Vision, the Library has worked with the wider University to develop a set of guiding Open Research principles for Lancaster University. This statement sets out the University's commitment to support all credible, practical and sustainable means of practicing Open Research. The statement is a living document, and is continually updated to reflect ongoing changes in the Open Research landscape.
Principles of Open Research at Lancaster UniversityDr Stanley Blue, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Practice Theory, discusses how Lancaster University Open Journals has supported their publication
Led by Lancaster University, Open Book Futures (OBF) is a £5.8 million funded project that will develop and support organisations, tools and practices that enable both academics and the wider public to make more and better use of books published on an Open Access basis. In particular, the project, which is also supported by Lancaster University Library, aims to achieve a step change in how community-owned Open Access book publishing is delivered.
Open Access books are made freely available on the internet without access restrictions. They are available to anyone with an internet connection, anywhere in the world, which increases the opportunities for research to be read, discussed, and cited. They have the potential to reach wider and more diverse audiences who might lack the resources to purchase it otherwise. Lancaster University is committed to ensuring that the outputs of our research are made readily available to anyone who would benefit from them.
The library has strong links with the accessibility work package of Open Book Futures, who are a small group, including one of the Open Research team’s librarians, that are guiding small publishers to achieve accessible ebooks. The main research output of this group is a comprehensive set of advice and guidance, that includes custom planning and auditing models designed in consultation with small publishers. The guidance and models take into account the unique context of both institution and scholar led presses who within their mission aim to scale small and produce diamond open access monographs. Feedback so far is incredibly positive, sharing that the guidance is clear and simple to follow, while also having applications beyond the context within which it was designed. You can access the full Open Book Accessibility guidance here:
Open Accessibility
In January 2024 we launched the Trailblazers Open Access Books scheme in partnership with Liverpool University Press, the University of Liverpool and the University of Salford. The scheme provides selected Early Career Researchers with the opportunity to publish a funded Open Access Book who otherwise might not have the chance to do so, and participate in a series of author boot camps to develop their publication skills. The scheme aligns to our library vision ‘to connect, innovate and include’ and to our long-standing commitment to Open Research.
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The university’s commitment to open research took another step forward in March 2023 with the launch of its Research Publications and Rights Retention Policy. This policy, inspired by the pioneering work of the University of Edinburgh will allow authors to keep the rights to their work and ensure that the university can make even more of its research available immediately open access. This policy was developed as part of an N8 Research Partnership collective endeavour.
Research Publications and Rights Retention Policy