OSSD 2026 · ReproducibiliTea KU Leuven: A poster-based journal club on-site

ReproducibiliTeam Leuven: Peer-Ole Jacobsen, Jan-Peter Sandler, My Luong Vuong, & Eline Van Geert
KU Leuven Open Science Study Day 2026 · May 6, 2026 · Leuven, Belgium

ReproducibiliTea Leuven is an initiative led by early-career researchers that promotes open science practices across disciplines. Founded in 2020, it is part of a global movement that originated at the University of Oxford and now has expanded across 127 institutions in 32 different countries. To introduce attendees to the club, this poster offers an opportunity to get to know ReproducibiliTea Leuven by presenting an instantaneous, poster-based session on-site with whoever likes to join the debate.

We will discuss Inkeri Koskinen’s paper, “Where is the epistemic community? On the democratisation of science and social accounts of objectivity” (2017). Koskinen explains that scientific objectivity is traditionally grounded in the consensus of groups of recognised experts within a field (so-called epistemic communities). She further argues that the increasing democratisation of science, through practices such as citizen science, activist research, or transdisciplinary teams, may lead to unclear boundaries between who counts as an expert and questions regarding the validity of their expertise. While broader participation among different stakeholders may enhance objectivity by introducing more diverse perspectives, Koskinen also highlights potential risks. These include difficulties in identifying epistemic communities in niche fields, less value-free judgements, and the possibility of “groupthink” in small or tightly connected communities, where dissenting views may be suppressed. Attendees are warmly invited to jointly reflect on questions such as, ‘What does it mean for science to be objective?’ Is value-free science possible? And how do you evaluate concerns about objectivity in increasingly democratic forms of knowledge production?

This poster further seeks to convey ReprodufibiliTea’s vision of Open Science, as an actively lived and discussed movement across fields.