IOI’s Katherine Skinner, with Laurel Haak and Kristen Ratan, co-authored an article in Research Ideas and Outcomes titled “Engineering Open by Design into Research Infrastructures”. This paper describes the significant challenge of ongoing restrictions to research infrastructure, even as there is growing momentum for open science research policy. This creates barriers to collaboration, limits reproducibility, and undermines the transparency that robust research requires. A new framework called "Open by Design" offers a solution: embed openness principles directly into infrastructure development from the very beginning, rather than trying to retrofit them later.
The approach combines technical components like modular architecture and standardised interfaces with behavioural elements, including continuous stakeholder engagement and transparent governance. Drawing from manufacturing principles and service design methodologies, it provides practical guidance for translating abstract open science values into concrete infrastructure features. The article illustrates potential applications of the framework in existing tools through short case studies: Infra Finder demonstrates how evaluation frameworks can motivate infrastructures to improve their openness practices, while case studies from Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and the Next Generation Library Publishing (NGLP) project reveal the benefits of intentional design from project inception.
The full methodology, evaluation frameworks, and implementation strategies are detailed in "Engineering Open by Design into Research Infrastructures".