There is no research on a dead planet – Fostering ecologically sustainable open science practices in neuroscience

The rapidly escalating climate crisis poses an existential threat to human wellbeing. Reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions must therefore become a primary goal of humanity. At the same time, advancing knowledge on human experience and behaviour through empirical research is likewise essential for wellbeing, but can incur substantial negative impact for the environment. Neuroscientific methods are particularly resource intensive and potentially harmful, from the carbon footprint of MRI scanners to the long-term impact of data centres keeping datasets permanently accessible for scientific reuse. This position paper addresses the resulting tension between scientific research, open science principles, and responsible scientific stewardship in times of the climate crisis. We discuss how sustainable open science practices can be implemented in neuroscience at each step of the research cycle following the ARIADNE framework. Specifically, we suggest to (1) re-place new data with open data, (2) re-fine methods to make them more sustainable, and (3) re-duce carbon emission of testing by precisely determining sample sizes and research protocols beforehand.