Case studies from the University of Reading of successful Open Research projects.

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In these case studies, researchers at the University of Reading explain how they have used open practices to carry out and communicate their research, and explore the benefits and challenges of being open.

If you are a researcher or research student at the University and would like us to publish your Open Research case study, find out more here.

Shelving containing boxes and folders within an archive

Making archive sources accessible

Dr Joseph O’Mahoney has piloted a tool that enables access from articles to digital versions of archival sources.

Windspeed and rainfall monitors graphs

Urban climate modelling

Publishing research software code under an Open Source licence and providing user support can improve the quality of the software, build an active user community, and lead to new collaborations.

A verger's dream: Saints Cosmas and Damian performing a miraculous cure by transplantation of a leg, attributed to he Master of Los Balbases in 1495

Surgery and selfhood

Dr Alanna Skuse discusses the benefits and challenges of publishing Open Access in the humanities.

Depiction of the Solar System showing the course of solar winds

Modelling the sun’s winds

Making the code for a new computational model of the solar wind Open Source has led to new collaborations and a partnership with the Met Office to develop a forecast tool.

Aerial view of a cloudscape

Data for the transition to clean energy

The Energy Meteorology Group has been sharing innovative datasets at the renewable energy-meteorology interface. This has led to new research collaborations and re-use of the data in both research and operational contexts.

ReproducibiliTea Reading

ReproducibiliTea Reading is a group of researchers and students who meet regularly to learn about reproducible research and develop their Open Research skills, as part of the international ReproducibiliTea initiative.

microbiology test samples

Designing a robot for microbiological imaging

Open Source hardware has been used in the design of a robot developed by a Biomedical Technology Lab at the University to take high resolution images of experiments capturing changes in colour and fluorescence due to bacterial growth.

network of connecting points

PhD research impact and visibility

Postdoctoral researcher in the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development at the University, highlights how early engagement with open practices during his PhD improved the quality of his research and supported his professional development.

A satellite image from the open global flood forecasting software developed at NCAS and Reading.

Worldwide flood forecasting

The world’s first open global-scale flood and drought forecasting system for rivers worldwide has been developed by scientists from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, the University of Reading and the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts.

A coronal mass ejection on the sun

Watching storms in space

Thousands of citizen scientists have collaborated with Reading meteorologists to carry out open research on solar storms as they travel through space.

A man and a woman in conversation

Testing philosophy

Experimental psychologists teamed up with a philosophy academic to explore how people talk about knowledge in everyday language. They used the methods and tools of open reproducible research to test and qualify findings from a published study.

An abstract image of a brain with colourful paint strands

Open culture in brain imaging

Staff and students at a University of Reading brain imaging facility have worked together to build a culture of Open Research, through Open Access publishing, using preprint servers, making code and making data openly available as standard.

Computer imagery of oceans

Environmental software for all

Open source software developed at the Institute for Environmental Analytics allows users to visualise and explore large-scale environmental datasets online. Since its release in 2010 the software has been used by research institutes, government agencies and the insurance, oil and gas, shipping and aviation industries.

Villagers gather to discuss TAMSAT ALERT

Predicting crop loss risk for African farmers

TAMSAT-ALERT is an open monitoring and decision-support tool that helps African farmers and insurers to assess the risk of crop losses from weather hazards. Applying Open Research principles has directly boosted its uptake and impact, particularly in the financial sector, in which transparent decision-making is essential.

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