Winner of the Open Research Award 2024
The University of Manchester is pleased to announce our first Open Research Award 2024 winner, recognising outstanding contributions to the University's open research culture over the past year.
Dr Stuart Wright is a Research Fellow in Health Economics in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health at The University of Manchester. Stuart was recognised for his contribution to the team research project, MANC-RISK-SCREEN . This project focuses on open and transparent validation of a breast cancer screening model evaluating the clinical and economic outcomes of different risk-based screening strategies in the UK.
You can view a recording of Stuart's presentation at the Open Research Conference 2024, in Figshare. Full details of the project, including the primary data and research outputs, are openly accessible on GitHub.
The project strongly aligned with The University of Manchester’s core principles of open research, as outlined in our Position Statement on Open Research, and demonstrated a commitment to these principles.
- Pre-registration of research
The breast cancer screening model builds on a previously published early model of risk-stratified screening and clearly cites this in all outputs.
- Transparency in research methodology
To improve the transparency of the model and its assumptions, a full validation of the model was undertaken and published as a pre-print, with a full journal article under review.
- Public availability and reusability of research data and analysis code
The data is described according to FAIR Data Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and is openly available. The model code is openly available on GitHub for re-use or adaptation by other research groups.
- Using web-based tools to facilitate collaboration
The research team have worked with Research IT to develop a software App to improve accessibility and to allow non-technical users to interact with the model.
Here's Stuart's perspective on his research project and the principles of open research:
"My research focuses on evaluating the cost-effectiveness of changes to screening programmes in the United Kingdom, particularly in breast and cervical cancer. To do this we’ve developed a model to simulate women’s experiences of different breast cancer screening strategies and are building one for cervical cancer. Methodologically, I’m interested in how we can make these models reflect the implementation barriers faced in trying to change practice in the NHS.
Last year, I was awarded a Wellcome Trust Early Career Fellowship and I think it was Wellcome’s data management requirements which really switched me on to the need to think more about Open Research. I then started to apply these concepts to the breast cancer model we were developing by making the code openly available, conducting a validation of the model and publishing pre-prints detailing our research. At each stage, we found taking an open approach yielded direct benefits for our research so we kept going from there!
In Health Economics, while there has been a move towards open models, this has been quite slow. When code is not available to review, it's hard to tell exactly what the researchers have done by reading a 4,000 word journal article. This means that models tend to be used in quite a 'throwaway way' and then new models created for similar jobs by different groups. We are now taking a different philosophy: trying to see models as research infrastructure. Making model code open helps with this, by allowing different groups to critique, build on, and adapt the same underlying models over time, strengthening them.
So far, we’ve taken quite a reactive approach to open research; building models or writing papers and then making them open. I am looking forward to learning how we can take a more planned approach to open research by learning from the Open Research Fellows. For example, I’m looking forwarded to learning about how the patient and public involvement Charter Mark could help us take a more systematic approach to patient involvement in our work. I have also established a network of researchers working in cancer early detection and hope to use what I learn to promote more open modelling across the UK."