At the University of Cambridge, Amy has led transformative efforts to embed open research practices on an institutional and national level. Since 2020, she has served on the University Steering Committee for Open Research, working closely with the library to launch the “Rights Retention Trial”, enabling researchers to make their outputs Open Access automatically. This initiative was adopted as University policy in 2023 and has since been replicated by other institutions. In addition, Amy earned a £20,000 MRC Early Career Impact Prize for her contribution to Open Science and Reproducibility, which she used to establish the Improving Research Community Builder Award, funding 25 small grants for ECR-led initiatives across the UK. Supported projects include the Black PhD Collective (Nottingham/Nottingham Trent) and Bring Your Parents to Research (Brunel), reaching over 500 researchers nationwide. This work was “highly commended” in the 2025 UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Impact Prize (Advancing Culture category).

Professor Amy Orben, DPhil

Professor Amy Orben is a Research Professor and Programme Leader at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge. Amy is a world-leading academic expert on how digital technologies shape adolescent mental health. Alongside her pioneering research, Amy is widely regarded as a leading voice for improving research culture, reproducibility, and open science. Her work has transformed how early career researchers, institutions, and national networks engage with research integrity and collaboration.

Amy’s contributions have been recognized through numerous national and international awards, including the UK Reproducibility Network Dorothy Bishop Early Career Researcher Prize (2022), the British Neuroscience Association Researcher Credibility Prize (2021), and the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science Mission Award (2020).

During her PhD, Amy co-founded ReproducibiliTea, a grassroots journal club initiative for ECRs that has grown to more than 100 locations worldwide. ReproducibiliTea has been internationally recognized for its impact on research culture and was cited in the UK House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee report on Reproducibility and Research Integrity (2023) as an “influential grassroots initiative.” Amy also authored a Nature article reflecting on the movement’s potential and influence.