Coordinator of the Open Science Community Serbia (OSCS), Aleksandra Lazić, has written a column for Nature Careers, one of the world’s leading platforms for researchers' professional development.

In her column, Aleksandra reflects on how an open science assignment became a turning point in her PhD journey at the LIRA Lab at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. She highlights her role in co-founding and managing REPOPSI, an open digital repository for psychological instruments in Serbian, and offers practical advice for early career researchers, especially those working in underfunded settings, who want to launch their own open science projects.

As Aleksandra writes: 

“Open science does not progress when it is done only by those who have abundant resources; it progresses when it is done by many people, in many settings, and in many new and creative ways.”

Her first piece of advice is to embrace imperfection

“If open science is done transparently, it doesn’t have to be done perfectly. You can always refine as you go.”

Read the full article: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00944-0 

If you do not have institutional access, please contact the author directly. The article will be made open access in October 2025.