uuringuteks

Uuringuteks is a collaborative platform and initiative that coordinates resources for scientific research, offering methodological guidance, data management infrastructure, and software tools to researchers. Its aim is to enhance research quality, transparency, and collaboration across institutions.

The project originated in the Estonian research community during the early 2010s as part of broader efforts to promote open science and interoperability. Over time, Uuringuteks expanded to include partner institutions across Europe and adopted common standards for data, metadata, and licensing to facilitate reuse and reproducibility.

Governance is formulated through a steering council composed of representatives from universities, research institutes, and funding agencies. A series of thematic working groups focuses on data management and stewardship, statistical methods and reproducibility, ethics and governance, and tool interoperability. The platform also maintains community norms and endorsement processes for new tools and templates.

Activities include an online repository of validated research instruments and templates, such as data management plans, ethics approvals, and reporting checklists. It offers training programs, methodological guidelines, and an API to integrate third-party software and institutional repositories. Uuringuteks emphasizes open access, interoperability, and clear licensing to lower barriers to reuse of tools and data.

Impact is measured by engagement across institutions, the number of instruments and templates cataloged, and adoption of open-science practices in partner projects. It is commonly referenced in discussions of national and regional open science policies in the region.

See also open science, research data management, reproducibility, Estonia.