Badges (Open Science)

Last updated on Feb 19, 2026
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Definition: Badges are symbols that editorial teams add to published manuscripts to acknowledge open science practices and act as incentives for researchers to share data, materials, or to embed study preregistration. As clearly-visible symbols, they are intended to signal to the reader that content has met the standard of open research required to receive the badge (typically from that journal). Different badges may be assigned for different practices, such as research having been made available and accessible in a persistent location (“open material badge” and “open data badge”), or study preregistration (“preregistration badge”).

Related terms: Incentives, Open Data badge, Preregistration, Triple badge

References:

  • Hardwicke, T. E., Bohn, M., MacDonald, K., Hembacher, E., Nuijten, M. B., Peloquin, B. N., & others. (2020). Analytic reproducibility in articles receiving open data badges at the journal Psychological Science: an observational study. Royal Society Open Science, 8(1), 201494. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.201494
  • Kidwell, M. C., Lazarević, L. B., Baranski, E., Hardwicke, T. E., Piechowski, S., Falkenberg, L. S., & Nosek, B. A. (2016). Badges to acknowledge open practices: A simple, low-cost, effective method for increasing transparency. PLoS Biology, 14(5), e1002456. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002456

Drafted and Reviewed by: Jacob Miranda, Brett Gall, Helena Hartmann, Mariella Paul, Charlotte R. Pennington, Lisa Spitzer, Suzanne L. K. Stewart