About

This project is funded by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences (a+) as part of the Action line D2.6. The codes of conduct sought by this call should serve as guiding principles to ensure the responsible and ethical use, sharing, and management of research data for different disciplines or specific data communities.

COCOPREND is conducted by the Center for Reproducible Science (CRS).

Funding period: 01.10.2024 - 30.06.2025

Background and Goals

Despite large volumes of data being generated in preclinical neuroimaging research, there is a lack of adequate support for processing them according to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles. This gap leads to inefficient data management and limited utility of the data that are made openly available. This project aims to develop a conduct for open research data (ORD) specifically targeting researchers working with preclinical (animal) neuroimaging data. The target community includes researchers using various imaging techniques to study the central nervous system in animals. In particular, this code of conduct provides resources for researchers active in Switzerland.

While there are comprehensive guidelines for planning, conducting and reporting animal experiments, as well as for managing data of different imaging modalities, the landscape of these resources is fragmented. This project systematically compiles and distills these resources to facilitate adoption of FAIR ORD practices by researchers. This code of conduct is developed collaboratively by the Center for Reproducible Science and key stakeholders including animal neuroscientists.

This code of conduct will benefit the 3R principles (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement) in animal research and improve data reusability and harmonisation in the community.

Core Team

The code of conduct is developed at the University of Zurich (UZH), Center for Reproducible Science (CRS).

  • Dr. Gorka Fraga González (main scientist). Role: Main contributor to the tasks of ellaborating and disseminating the code of conduct. Expertise: He is co-leading the project AFFORD: A framework for avoiding the open research data dump which involves data support to several groups of the target community. Experienced with multiple imaging techniques, he is involved in the elaboration of ORD guidelines and data stewardship.

  • Fabio Molo (project manager), managing director of CRS. Role: Project supervision and coordination, review and editing. Expertise: Fabio Molo is the managing director of the CRS, involved in research and teaching at the center and focused on open and reproducible research practices.

  • Prof. Dr. Leonhard Held (consulting senior scientist). Role: Link to Swiss Reproducibility Network, to the CRS community, and to institutional bodies at the University of Zurich. Expertise: Leonhard Held is head of the UZH biostatistics department, chair of the steering committee of the CRS, and co-PI of the project AFFORD which involves the target research community. He is a member of the Task Force on ORD in the Health and Life Sciences, mandated by the ORD Strategy Council, and a founding steering committee member of the Swiss Reproducibility Network. He is committed to ensuring transparency and reproducibility of research through Open Data and Open Code.

Consulting Partners

The following consulting partners will be involved in disseminating the code of conduct and will act as interface with the target community.

  • Prof. Dr. Vartan Kurtcuoglu. Role: interface between target research community and the CRS. Expertise: Domain-specific expertise. Vartan Kurtcuoglu is the head of the The Interface Group at the Institute of Physiology, with the mission to address clinical needs through the convergence of engineering, biological and medical research.

  • PD Dr. Dr. Benjamin Ineichen. Role: interface between target research community and the CRS. Expertise: expertise in preclinical neuroimaging and 3R. Junior group leader of the STRIDE lab with the vision to bridge the gap between preclinical and clinical research.

  • Dr. Paulin Jirkof. Role: interface between target research community and the CRS. Expertise: Domain-specific expertise. 3R coordinator for the University of Zurich since 2018 and representative of the University of Zurich as node coordinator at the Swiss 3RCC, board member of the Swiss Laboratory Animal Science Association.