On May 12th 2025, we gathered at Radboud University in Nijmegen for a day full of insight, learning, and awareness. The goal of this workshop day was to equip participants with know-how to make their research, research support, and/or events (such as presentations, training, engagement activities) more open, participatory, and inclusive in the broadest sense of the word.
Participants came from both within and beyond Dutch borders to participate in this event, representing all stages of academic careers, from research assistant and PhD candidates to support staff, researchers and professors. Once everyone had arrived, the day began with opening speeches stressing the importance of this event, both seen from the organizers side as well as the participants’ motivation for coming to discuss and learn how to put Equity, Diversity and Inclusion into our (Open Science) practices.
Following this, participants could choose to partake in two out of three workshops:
A) Leveling the playing field for careers in science & measuring marginalization by Afreen Khalid and Ze Freeman
B) Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion in the research lifecycle by Thomas Gültzow and Hanne Zimmermann
C) Inclusive events, work environments and building ally skills by Esther Plomp and Melanie Imming
In Khalid and Freeman’s workshop, the focus was on navigating the research world as a member of a marginalised group. They shared research-based insights on how to support others with similar diverse backgrounds who are pursuing a career in science. The presentation emphasised the importance of privacy and critically assessing when data collection is truly necessary. One example discussed was booking a Eurostar train ticket — should the options go beyond “Mr” and “Lady” (the literal choices provided), giving a whole list of options to give everyone the feeling of being seen, or should the question be removed altogether? How do we ask these questions in our research? And will we actually use all the answer options or lump them into ‘other’ anyway (in which case just providing an ‘other’ option at least tells the participant how their data is used, and ‘not listed’ would be even better as it also prevents ‘othering’ language). At the end of the workshop, participants were asked to imagine themselves as part of a marginalized group, consider a potential challenge they might face, and then develop a possible solution. Want to reflect on these topics more? The slides will soon be added as a next step resulting from the grant proposal.
Gültzow and Zimmermann’s workshop focused on ensuring diverse and inclusive representation throughout the research process. On the list of covered topics was: the research team, population representation, reflexivity, and transparency regarding researchers’ positionality. All topics boiling down to how Open Science practices, such as pre-registration (pre-study documentation of hypotheses, methods, or analyses), can help make research more diverse, inclusive, and transparent. The key takeaway may be that conducting research on diverse groups is not enough–people from these groups must be actively included in the research (process). Moreover, even small design decisions can significantly influence how inclusive a study is. Find this session’s slides here, and find a paper with inclusivity and diversity elements for preregistration here.
Plomp and Imming’s session highlighted how we can drive change in situations where we have more privilege and power than others. As an example, they mentioned how members of the Open Science Communities could act as change agents by modeling inclusivity. Participants were encouraged to train and use their ally skills, for instance by speaking up for others. They also shared resources on how to organise accessible, inclusive initiatives. Find the slides including exercises, resources and tips for basic ally skills here.
The day concluded with a closing speech that highlighted how discrimination can take hidden forms, and shared examples of misconduct where it might be least expected, even within one’s own department. The main takeaway was a call for humility: we may not always know the best way to be inclusive on an individual level, but we shouldn’t be afraid to try, ask and learn how to do better. It was a fitting end to a workshop day that encouraged honest reflection and practical conversation. Big thanks to the organisers for creating this event that gave us this opportunity.
Written by members of the community, including Signe Glæsel, Melanie Imming, Esther Plomp, Thomas Gültzow, and Anna van ‘t Veer.
