Leading cross-disciplinary conversations around open, transparent and rigorous research: Findings from a series of focus groups

Abstract

This article documents and reflects on a series of focus groups held at the University of Sheffield in Spring 2025 that brought together researchers across a range of disciplines, methodological approaches and career stages with the aim of initiating a conversation about the relationship between openness, transparency and rigour across different subject areas and research types. We explore the value of such work in prompting mutual reflection and facilitating researchers’ positioning relative to this cluster of concepts, in addition to exchanging good practice and surfacing disciplinary and methodological assumptions. Cross-disciplinary exchanges are, we suggest, crucial in contesting the narrowness of dominant frameworks of open research which assume a homogeneity of methods that is problematic for many researchers, especially those in the arts, humanities and social sciences and those working in qualitative and interpretive traditions. We further highlight the potential of libraries and other professional services with a broad and inclusive disciplinary remit to facilitate dialogue and discussion of this kind.