Ben Goldacre calls for funding to develop open research tools

Campaigner says universities and funders should do more to get software engineers involved in research

Funders and universities should invest more in the development of open research tools, an important activity which is currently being done as a hobby, a leading academic and campaigner has said.

Ben Goldacre, who runs a team of academics, clinicians and software developers at the University of Oxford’s DataLab, which turns large datasets into tools and services to help others do research, said there is currently “almost no open competitive funding for anyone who wants to build these kind of intermediate tools”.