Our activities

Activities to support and promote credibility in neuroscience

Activities to meet our manifesto commitments 

Supporting a shift in research culture that’s welcomed and desired by the whole neuroscience community 

Credibility in Neuroscience Roadshow

The roadshow is a transportable and highly flexible format to stimulate discussion and raise awareness of credibility/open/reproducible science. Depending on the type of event and space available, the road show can consist of talks/seminars, credibility stall or interactive session. We'd be delighted bring the roadshow to your institution/organisation. 

Leading change in research culture via the BNA’s own activities

We have introduced the preregistration poster format to our Biannual BNA festival of neuroscience

Our journal, Brain and Neuroscience Advances, exemplifies our commitment to increase the credibility of neuroscience research. It is Gold Open Access, accepts submission of preprints posted on community servers such as arXiv and bioRxiv, and does not impose word limits on or restrict the number of references for original articles. Since its launch we have introduced a number of other features which support credibility:
  • Facility for authors to use the CRediT taxonomy.
  • Introduction of Open Science badges, to incentivise and celebrate sharing of data, analysis code and materials.
  • Introduction of Registered Reports publishing format (and award associated preregistration open science badges with this publishing format)
We published a special editorial to highlight our support for transparent and reliable reporting at Brain and Neuroscience Advances: Promoting and supporting credibility in neuroscience.

In March 2021, we awarded our first BNA Credibility Prizes - recognising excellent efforts in the neuroscience community aimed at improving credibility. 

Check out a webinar we held on shifting research culture in 2022. 

Equipping all neuroscientists – regardless of career stage, location, research topic or specialist technique – with the skills, knowledge, tools and processes they need to carry out neuroscience research which will stand the test of time.

Credibility in Neuroscience website

We will be using this website to inform neuroscientists of the ongoing credibility programme, contain information on upcoming (internal and external) credibility events, open and reproducible science initiatives (and signposts to useful websites), new funding initiatives, articles, interviews and more. 

This website also contains the credibility toolkit a comprehensive how-to of credible research, a FAQ page and a comprehensive glossary of credibility-related terms. 

Upskilling the sector

An important component of our programme is ensuring that neuroscientists are equipped with the knowledge, understanding, skills and expertise to increase the credibility of their neuroscience research. 

To facilitate this, we have been awarding BNA credibility in neuroscience bursaries to allow neuroscientists to attend open and reproducible science events (e.g., summer schools, workshops and brainhacks). 

We will also be delivering some of our own training events over the course of the credibility in neuroscience programme. 

Changing the landscape in which neuroscientists operate so that the influences which drive research also drive the most credible research.

Engaging with policy makers, funders, publishers, industry and other stakeholders

Increasing the credibility of neuroscience research is not something that BNA can do alone and we are working with major stakeholders to ensure change happens in a united way. 

The UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) was formed in 2019 to ensure coordinated efforts across the sector and we are proud to be one of the founding members of the UKRN Stakeholder Group.

We have also fed views into initiatives such as the UKRI's review on open access, and the UK Government's R&D People and Culture strategy. 

We submitted written evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee inquiry on reproducibility and research integrity, and to the funding councils' Future Research Assessment Programme that will inform the design of the next REF.

Promoting and supporting credible initiatives

In February 2019 the BNA Trustees added the BNA to the list of signatories of DORA, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. 

DORA is a worldwide initiative to encourage development of ways to evaluate research and researchers that - crucially - do not rely on journal impact factors, but instead seeks to value the research itself and not where it is published. 

In February 2021, the BNA complemented this commitment by endorsing the Hong Kong Principles (HKPs) for assessing researchers, an initiative developed by the World Conference on Research Integrity aimed at rewarding researchers for specific positive behaviours that promote trustworthy research. 

We feel that both DORA and the HKPs align with the BNA’s commitment to credibility and transparency of research, and it is therefore entirely appropriate to be a signatory, and to promote both to help change the research landscape. See more about what this means here. 

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