Aleksandra Lazić is a PhD Researcher at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Philosophy, LIRA Lab and one of the co-founders of REPOPSI – the Repository of Psychological Instruments in Serbian. In November 2024, the Research Data Alliance (RDA) recognised her with the first ‘Sarah Jones Award for exceptional contribution to fostering collaboration in Open Science’.
Hi Aleksandra, first of all congratulations – I watched your acceptance speech at the RDA Plenary, and I was moved by your words, by your evident passion for what you do, and by the journey that led you to receiving the Sarah Jones Award.
Thank you! It was an emotional moment for me too, it’s a meaningful recognition.
Can you tell us a bit more about your work and about REPOPSI?
I’ve been engaged in open science for over five years now. In 2019, when I joined the LIRA Lab as a PhD student in psychology, we had the idea of assembling in one place all the psychological instruments – such as tests, scales, and questionnaires – that we were using in our research studies. We didn’t have an institutional repository yet and all these instruments were scattered across cloud storages and emails… If we needed any of them, we usually had to contact the author directly. We also had no way of knowing if they had already been translated into Serbian. We needed to change that.
To start with, we managed to collect around 100 instruments and translations, mostly through hackathons within our lab, and we deposited them on the Open Science Framework. As a PhD student and under the mentorship of my professors, I was tasked with leading those initial efforts… and I am glad I was, as open science turned out to be something I’m really passionate about!
Sarah was a true believer in the RDA – she said it was her ‘tribe’. How did you get involved with the RDA and which role did it have in the development of REPOPSI?
As I said in my acceptance speech, it ended up influencing REPOPSI even more than I could have imagined. The RDA came into play early on, in 2020, when we were introduced to the TRUST principles for repositories through the RDA newsletter.
To learn more, I started joining RDA webinars. What really resonated with me was the idea that adherence to the FAIR and TRUST principles is more of a spectrum rather than a binary. So, the contact with the RDA made it all seem less intimidating. We then decided to use RDA materials to self-assess our repository and presented the results at a local conference. It was then that an RDA member saw our paper and invited us to join the virtual RDA Plenary in 2020.
Two years later, our activities and involvement with the RDA opened the doors for us to receive a substantial grant through the EOSC Future and RDA open calls. That was crucial for REPOPSI: we used it to elevate its service and make it more user friendly, more interoperable and sustainable, to make the data more FAIR, the repository more TRUST-worthy, and to increase the international visibility of REPOPSI.
During this nine-month project, we also built the website, an interactive search application, and an online submission form; we enhanced the metadata by applying a controlled vocabulary and by providing it in a machine-readable format. We also trained students to search open doctoral theses for more instruments to be deposited into REPOPSI.
Afterwards, I remained involved with the RDA. First in informal meetings with a group of previous grantees, which has now evolved into an official RDA coordination group called “RDA ambassadors”. We dive into lively discussions and share resources and events, so I encourage all members of the RDA community to join us.
How did you apply open science principles to REPOPSI?
This has been a key focus in REPOPSI. In the beginning, we were actually forced to use free and open source tools, simply because we didn’t have any funding. However, we later realised that these tools also greatly contribute to the FAIR-ness of our services. Apart from Open Science Framework, we use GitHub and Zenodo. We developed the repository search app using the R programming language. We also used Python and DataCite resources to enhance the metadata. We made REPOPSI more discoverable by including it in different registries, like re3data.org, FAIRsharing, and OpenDOAR.
What drew you to the field of open science initially?
My first contact was through the LIRA Lab, where researchers were studying the issue of replication crisis in psychology. I got intrigued by this topic, started reading about open science, following people on Twitter. However, as I started working on REPOPSI, I realised that I was less interested in what was wrong in how science is done and more interested in what could be done right. I started seeing open science as a way to improve not only the rigor of science but also science accessibility. Take REPOPSI for example: it’s not just about managing our research data in a better way, but also about increasing the visibility of our work, as researchers coming from an underrepresented region.
On that note, you are also an advocate for increased participation of under-represented groups and world regions in research collaborations – a topic that was very close to Sarah. What are the main barriers for inclusion and which measures can we take to reduce them?
Last year, through a project funded by the Open Research Funders Group, we organised workshops and discussions involving more than 200 researchers and other stakeholders from ABRIR hubs in Latin America, Africa, Malaysia, India, Nepal, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia. Our main takeaway was that doing open science and big-team science is not the same everywhere and that we should avoid preconceived and generalised notions. If we want equal participation and leadership, we need to identify the unique barriers faced by researchers from different communities.
We also need more funding opportunities that are accessible to researchers from the Global South and South East Europe – they should be usable, practical, and applicable for projects relevant to our regions. But there are also some low-cost ways of amplifying the voices of underrepresented researchers by simply citing our work in publications and interacting with us on social media.
Additionally, I would like to see more big organisations showing interest in learning about bottom-up initiatives, as we often feel like it’s up to us to promote our efforts and take the first step. When it comes to getting familiar with the national open science landscape, I recommend connecting with grassroots, informal organisations, where there is more energy and engagement. In Serbia, that’s the Open Science Community Serbia or the recently launched Serbian Reproducibility Network.
What did it mean for you to receive the Sarah Jones Award?
It was a proud moment for me and the recognition motivates me to continue working in open science. As I said in my acceptance speech, I was moved just to be nominated for the award and that someone saw our contribution. When you come from an underrepresented country, sometimes you can feel invisible in the international scene, and it can be hard to get the word out about your work. While the award was back in November, I still feel its impact. I feel like the whole community keeps carrying its spirit and driving me to reflect and share my experience.
I remember meeting Sarah at the 20th RDA Plenary in Sweden in March 2023. We were at the same event on the Global Research Commons, and I later found out that she had listened to my presentation. We never talked in person, but we connected on Twitter, chatted, made some jokes, and I got the same impression everyone had – that she was funny, and approachable, and really kind, and someone that you could come up to for help whenever you needed it. I recommend to everyone who wants to learn more about her to listen to the special episode of the FAIR Data podcast dedicated to her memory. I have read a lot about her, but I believe that hearing from people who knew her can provide a clearer understanding of the great impact she made across different communities and organisations.
What’s on the horizon for you and your work?
This year, I’ll finish my PhD in psychology and two new PhD students will be taking over managing REPOPSI. I feel like I’ve given everything I could to the project, so it’s time for someone else to take the lead. At the moment, it’s all about handing over responsibilities and planning for long-term sustainability.
I’ll remain actively involved with my communities this year. I just gave a talk at the Open Research Week about my experience with REPOPSI and doing open science in Serbia. I have also been working on a couple of publications on open science in developing countries to bring more visibility around this topic.
Further ahead, I hope to continue to combine – in some new role – my research experience with my experience in open science. I’m looking forward to the future, it’s a bit scary, but also exciting.
The Opening Session of the 24th RDA Plenary (RDA VP24) on Monday 7 April 2025 (14:00-15:30 UTC), titled ‘The Power of People, The Power of Data and Technology’, will feature a fireside chat between RDA Secretary General Hilary Hanahoe and Aleksandra Lazić. Read more about the session and register to join.
