Open Science and Open Source only with Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

At rOpenSci, our mission is to

foster a culture that values open and reproducible research using shared data and reusable software

and we achieve this through

creating social infrastructure through a welcoming and diverse community

We feel it is a time to reiterate and clarify why this is and what it means.

The open in open source and open science means more than how we share code or data. It means knocking down the barriers to participation so that it is open and accessible to all, that everyone can join in the benefits and joys of science, and removing our blinders to the humanity of those we previously missed.

By expanding the circle of our collaborators, we expand knowledge and perspectives. This in turn helps us solve problems more quickly and efficiently, and helps us to anticipate and adapt to more situations. A diverse circle of collaborators enables more robust results, better software and stronger science. We can move towards those goals faster, further, and better together.

This utilitarian perspective, though, is only one reason for welcoming everyone into our community. Doing our best science, and recognizing the humanity of every person, both serve the same goal. We practice and preach open source and open science in order for science to get better, so that it can produce innovation and public goods that lift everyone up. If we fail to support each others’ human rights, we fail at why we do science in the first place.

To be absolutely clear, when we say everyone, we include:

LGBTQ+ people.

Trans people.

Every gender.

Indigenous people.

People of color.

Immigrants and refugees in any nation.

Neurodivergent people.

People with disabilities.

We are proud of our Champions Program, in which we’ve paired mentors and mentees from groups historically excluded from scientific computing to make contributions to open source and promote open science in their local communities. We are also proud of our multilingual program, to make R development resources and peer-review available in Spanish, and now Portuguese, through community-supported translation and human-first LLM workflows. Our Code of Conduct is an essential tool for inclusion and safety. We take it seriously. We are proud of the work we do with partners such as R-Ladies and LatinR.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) is a phrase or framework used to describe the work of making every person welcome in a community. The progress that these programs have made is under threat by governments and institutions worldwide that try to suppress DEIA programs and exclude and erase the people these programs seek to recognize. We condemn these attacks. rOpenSci is a global community, with members on every continent, and in the face of these threats our mission will not change. We will not rescind our values and the welcome we extend to all, and we will continue to support our community and peers in doing the same.

This is a journey, and we’re nowhere near finished. We can do more and become better. We strive to cultivate a community where everyone is welcomed, respected, supported, and valued. Including all of humanity is and always will be at the heart of open science.