PMI: Advocating Scientific Transparency

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 07/25/2019

Philip Morris International (PMI) has created an open online platform for sharing data, software and scientific protocols.

Called Intervals, the platform has been built to address what PMI describes as a scientific reproducibility crisis, and gather in a single place scientific data relating to modified risk tobacco products, also known as reduced-risk products.

Open to scientists from both academia and industry, and designed to enable third-party collaboration and analysis, Intervals follows the “FAIR” guiding principles for data sharing, i.e., data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.

Scientists are encouraged to add their own independent research to Intervals, thereby contributing to transparency in the field and increasing the visibility of their work.

“Across the life-sciences we see consistently low rates of the reproducibility of scientific research,” said Stéphanie Boué, scientific data transparency, PMI.

“Sharing data in a way that enables reanalysis and reuse is not yet done in a systematic manner, despite the fact that doing so would clearly benefit the scientific community and society in general.

“This is particularly true where the quality of science may be questioned due to the affiliations of researchers, funding sources or research topics. Tobacco harm reduction is one such area, and Intervals is a crucial resource to ensure full transparency and reproducibility of the scientific research being conducted in the field.”　　Enditems