Our Director Eduarda Centeno Receives the French Prix Science Ouverte de la Thèse

On December 1st, our director Eduarda Centeno attended the École Normale Supérieure of Université de Paris-Saclay (Paris, France) to receive the prestigious Prix Science Ouverte de la Thèse.

Organized by the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Space, the award recognizes doctoral projects that stand out for their implementation of open and reproducible science practices. In total, there are eight awardees, two in each category. Eduarda was honored in the field of Medicine and Health Biology with her doctoral project, available here.

Over four years of work at the Université de Bordeaux, Eduarda developed a workflow inspired by various open and reproducible science practices. This effort allowed her to standardize the collection, management, analysis, and sharing of data and metadata, supporting internal projects and collaborations with other European laboratories. The main focus was to investigate how Zebra Finches learn and consolidate their song – a topic that bridges biology, neuroscience, and data science.

More information about the award can be found here and here.

 A Word from Our Director

“Winning this award was an incredible highlight of my year and a special closure to this chapter of my career. Implementing this project was not simple – we know that putting open and reproducible science practices into action can be challenging, whether due to lack of encouragement and acceptance from supervisors or the absence of consolidated information on how to carry out standardizations.

I was fortunate to have a team that supported me greatly, both within my laboratory and through external collaborations, which made it possible to develop and implement each stage of the workflow. Writing the thesis itself was also complex, since placing open science at the center of the manuscript is not common and generated some resistance. But I am happy to see the work recognized precisely for its boldness.

I believe that this kind of incentive from the French Ministry makes all the difference. I would love to see something similar implemented in Brazil – and, as director of the Network, I am available to work on initiatives together with national research funders.”

Why Does This Matter?

This international recognition reinforces the importance of valuing open and reproducible science practices worldwide, including in Brazil. The Brazilian Reproducibility Network believes that initiatives like this strengthen trust in science, expand collaboration, and make results more transparent and accessible.

We celebrate the achievement of our director and hope it inspires other researchers to be bold in implementing open practices in their projects.