Many of the challenges faced by both basic and clinical neuroscientists, such as ensuring the reproducibility of important findings and the representation of underserved populations, can be tackled with Open Science approaches. To achieve these goals, we have built the Canadian Open Neuroscience Platform (CONP), which aims to make neuroscience research, data, and tools accessible to everyone, with the ultimate objective of accelerating scientific discovery and its eventual translation to disease treatments. The CONP takes a multifaceted approach to enabling open science in the field of neuroscience. Central to CONP’s tailor-made infrastructure is its Portal, which allows both datasets and analysis tools to be shared in accordance with FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse) principles. Another key piece of CONP infrastructure is NeuroLibre, an open publishing platform that provides interactive, fully transparent and reproducible scientific publications that embed data, text, figures and code along with the full computational environment required to run that code. To situate these efforts in ethically sound data-sharing policy, the CONP has constructed governance frameworks and toolkits that strike a balance between safe-guarding the rights of data subjects and promoting widespread public benefit from scientific advancement. The CONP has also focussed on training the next generation of neuroscientists through its scholar and training program, as well as disseminating findings and fostering Open Science values within the neuroscience community. Taken together, these elements embody the CONP vision for promoting Open Science practices in neuroscience, with attendant benefits for brain researchers and the wider community.
Partners and Donors
The Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning/McGill University
