Center for Open Science Appoints MIT and University of Bath Leaders to Board to Drive 2028 Strategic Plan

MIT’s Chris Bourg and University of Bath’s Marcus Munafò join the COS Board to advance Lifecycle Open Science and the 2028 Strategic Plan.

By: AXL Media

Published: Mar 25, 2026, 9:20 AM EDT

Source: Information for this report was sourced from the Center for Open Science

Strategic Focus on Lifecycle Open Science

The Center for Open Science has entered a transformative operational phase with the release of its 2026–2028 Strategic Plan. This new roadmap shifts the organization’s focus toward "Lifecycle Open Science," an initiative designed to ensure that every stage of the research process—from initial planning and materials to final code and outcomes—is openly connected. By embedding transparency into the entire research heritage, COS aims to move open scholarship from a peripheral ideal to a mainstream academic norm. The addition of Dr. Chris Bourg and Professor Marcus Munafò is intended to provide the high-level governance necessary to navigate this systemic reform.

Bourg’s Leadership in Equitable Scholarship

Dr. Chris Bourg, the Director of Libraries at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), brings a specialized focus on the intersection of open access and social justice. As the founding director of the Center for Research on Equitable and Open Scholarship (CREOS), Bourg has a distinguished history of advocating for a scholarly ecosystem that is both transparent and democratic. Her career includes ten years as a U.S. Army officer and faculty member at West Point, followed by over a decade of leadership at Stanford University Libraries. At MIT, she has been a primary architect of task forces regarding the future of libraries and the integration of generative AI in scholarly content.

Advocating for Transparency as a Democratic Pillar

Bourg’s appointment strengthens the Board’s ties to major national research roundtables, including the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. She currently serves on the Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science, where she works to bridge the gap between institutional policy and individual researcher behavior. Upon joining the COS Board, Bourg emphasized that the organization’s evidence-based, systems-level approach is uniquely positioned to foster a more trustworthy scholarly environment. Her expertise will be critical in shaping how libraries and repositories evolve to support the interconnected data requirements of the new Lifecycle Open Science mandate.