Open Science in the Developing World

The what, how, and why of Open Science in the Developing World

Open Science in the Developing World is a completed, large-scale international collaboration by 49 open scientists from 12 developing countries, led and supported by FORRT members, that culminated in several community resources (see below) and a peer-reviewed publication in the journal Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science (AMPPS), entitled “Open Science in the Developing World: A Collection of Practical Guides for Researchers in Developing Countries.” See our postprint here.

The project responds to a central tension in the open science movement:

while open science is often presented as universally beneficial, its dominant tools, incentives, and norms have largely been designed by and for researchers in well-resourced, Global North contexts.

This Open Science in the Developing World initiative reframes open science as something that must be context-sensitive, adaptable, and equity-oriented, particularly for researchers working in developing countries and other resource-constrained environments.

What does the paper do?

Rather than offering abstract principles, the paper delivers a practical, action-oriented roadmap for engaging with open science under real-world constraints.

It explicitly acknowledges structural barriers such as:

• limited funding and infrastructure
• language and access asymmetries
• metric-driven academic incentives
• unequal visibility and leadership opportunities

and responds with concrete strategies that researchers can adopt immediately, without requiring institutional privilege or substantial financial resources.

Fig. 1. A schematic representation of the nested and interconnected structure of barriers for engaging in open science in developing countries. The top layer describes the three aspects of engaging in open science: accessibility to open resources, accessible resources to be able to contribute to open science, and opportunities to exercise leadership and to be a leader. The middle layer includes micro-level barriers that directly and specifically slow down engagement in open science. The bottom layer includes macro-level barriers that constrain science in general. The dashed line means the indirect constraints, and the solid line means direct constraints; different colors are used for the lines to enhance visibility.

The Four-Level Engagement Framework

The paper introduces a four-level guide for engaging with open science at one’s own pace:

1. Foundation

Using free and open resources to support rigorous research practices
(e.g., OSF, GitHub, Zenodo, preprints, open educational materials).

2. Growth

Adopting low-cost, high-impact practices such as:

• open data and materials (where appropriate)
• preregistration and registered reports
• free and open-source software (e.g., R, JASP, Jamovi)

3. Community

Contributing to open science through:

• translations
• data collection in underrepresented contexts
• peer review, mentoring, and training
• participation in grassroots networks

4. Leadership

Building and leading local or regional open-science communities, shaping norms, incentives, and research culture from within.

This structure explicitly rejects a “one-size-fits-all” model of open science and emphasizes agency, sustainability, and local relevance.

Fig. 2. Practical guide for engaging in and contributing to open science as researchers from developing countries. Researchers start with using open resources and building a solid foundation, gradually grow and adopt recommended practices according to their own pace and context, contribute to the community in various ways, and finally, become leaders in the open-science movement.

Fig. 3. The hidden costs of “best open-science practices” for researchers in developing countries. FORRT = the Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training; COSN = the Chinese Open Science Network; APC = article-processing cost; OA = open access.

This figure follows the steps of a research project, from generating hypotheses and designing the study to collecting and analysing data, interpreting results and publishing. For each step it names the practice usually recommended, such as preregistration, large samples, big-team science, open access and open data, and the hidden costs these practices carry for researchers in developing countries, including research topics geared to developed countries, an unconventional front-loaded workflow, extra training and time, resources for large samples, lack of standard equipment and proprietary software, unequal collaboration, article-processing charges and regional discrimination.

Educational & Practical Resources

Beyond the main article, the project provides an extensive set of open, reusable resources, including:

• curated lists of open-access repositories in developing countries
• guidance on ethical reuse of open data, code, and materials
• inventories of free and open-source software and hardware
• open training materials for statistics, methods, and meta-research
• step-by-step guidance for contributing to and leading open-science initiatives

These materials are designed for:

• early-career researchers
• educators and trainers
• community organizers
• researchers operating outside elite institutional ecosystems

They align closely with FORRT’s broader mission to democratize access to research training and epistemic participation.

Community and Organizational Exemplars

To illustrate how the four-level engagement framework operates in practice, the paper highlights several community-driven organizations and networks that have successfully adapted open science practices to resource-limited and non-Western contexts. These examples are illustrative rather than exhaustive, demonstrating diverse pathways through which researchers can engage with, contribute to, and lead open science initiatives.

Importantly, these organizations differ in scale, disciplinary focus, governance models, and regional scope—but share a commitment to accessibility, capacity building, and contextual sensitivity.

Grassroots and Regional Open Science Networks

• COSN
  A researcher-led initiative advancing open science training, infrastructure, and community-building in China. COSN demonstrates how open science can be meaningfully localized through language accessibility, culturally relevant training, and institutional engagement.

• OSCS
  A national grassroots network promoting open research practices through workshops, repositories, and policy engagement. OSCS illustrates how sustained community organizing can translate open science principles into national-level infrastructures.

• BrRN
  A multidisciplinary network inspired by reproducibility initiatives but adapted to the Brazilian research ecosystem. BrRN highlights the role of coordinated national networks in linking grassroots efforts with institutional and policy reform.

Inclusion-Focused and Transnational Initiatives

• ABRIR
  An international consortium addressing barriers faced by researchers from developing countries in big-team and open-science collaborations. ABRIR foregrounds issues of representation, onboarding, credit, and leadership in large-scale research.

• FORRT
  A global, community-driven initiative focused on open science education, training, and metascience. Within the context of this project, FORRT served as a coordination hub, dissemination platform, and educational infrastructure supporting inclusive engagement with open science practices.

Why these examples matter

Together, these organizations demonstrate that:

• Open science can be advanced without reliance on elite institutions or high-cost infrastructures
• Community-led models are critical for capacity building, sustainability, and local ownership
• Leadership in open science can and does emerge from the Global South and other resource-constrained settings

These exemplars reinforce the paper’s central argument: open science becomes more robust, equitable, and globally relevant when it is shaped by diverse communities rather than exported as a fixed model.

Why this matters for FORRT

This project exemplifies several core FORRT principles:

• Equity before compliance: open science should reduce, not reproduce, inequality
• Training as infrastructure: education and mentorship are foundational to reform
• Community over extraction: meaningful inclusion requires leadership, not tokenism
• Pluralism in practice: open science must adapt to diverse epistemic and material contexts

The paper also directly informs FORRT’s ongoing work on:

• global open-science education
• citational justice
• inclusive big-team science
• community-led governance models

Contributors

• 49 contributors covered Open Science-related topics from the perspective of 12 developing countries.

How we did it?

• Open call for contributors.

• Identified topic leads.

• Drafts for each topic.

• First draft of the whole paper.

• Re-structure the first draft of the whole paper.

• Final preprint of the paper is available here.

• Final Publication is available here.

Conference Presentations

• 2025-06-27 | SIPS 2025, Budapest, Hungary
  Unconference: “A Collection of Practical Guides for Adopting Open Science Practices in Resource-Limited Settings”

• 2024-06-10 | SIPS 2024, Nairobi, Kenya
  Hackathon: “Promoting Open Science in Developing Countries: A Practical Guide”

• 2023-10-23 | Big Team Science Conference 2023 (online) | Featured Panel #24. See program here.

Peer-reviewed Publication

The open access publication can be found here, and the postprint can be found here (osf.io/7ubk2). Download the supplementary material here.

Hu, C.-P., Xu, Z., Lazić, A., Bhattacharya, P., Seda, L., Hossain, S., Jeftić, A., Özdoğru, A. A., Amaral, O. B., Miljković, N., Ilchovska, Z. G., Lazarevic, L. B., Bao, H. W. S., Ghodke, N., Moreau, D., Elsherif, M., C., C., Ghai, S., Carneiro, C. F. D., … Azevedo, F. (2025). Open Science in the Developing World: A Collection of Practical Guides for Researchers in Developing Countries. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 8(3), 25152459251357565. https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459251357565

Learn more & get involved

If you are interested in adapting, translating, teaching, or extending these materials in your own context, we invite you to connect with the FORRT community.

Contact Us

Please contact Dr. Hu Chuan-Peng ( hcp4715@hotmail.com), School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China and Flavio Azevedo ( info@forrt.org).