With the appearance of new ways and channels for scholarly communication, open science becomes even more important for the research community all over the world. European Commission pays much attention to the issues of open science. The Strategic Plan of Vilnius University also provides for the preparation of “The Guidelines for Open Science Policy and a Plan of Implementation", which aims to foster a culture of open science, promote openness, enhance the quality of research outcomes and educational resources that are based on them, as well as promote the dissemination of research. Promoting open science practices is not only a political but also an ethical issue: the pandemic has shown the importance of sharing research outcomes - data, publications, information - not only with researchers around the world, but also with the public, while initiating dialogue and building trust in science.
For more on this topic, Vilnius University Library held an interview with Silvia Bottaro, a Legal Officer in the Open Science Unit at the European Commission´s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation. We talked with her about the initiatives of the European Commission, challenges and recommendations for member states on access to and preservation of scientific information.
What factors led to the European Commission’s current science policy which champions Open Science?
Everything started with a group of academics alerting us in the mid-00s of problems that university libraries were facing with access to scientific papers. This is how we got interested first in open access, then in something bigger that was later named open science. We got increasingly convinced that open science has the potential to increase the quality, efficiency and impact of research and innovation, to lead to greater responsiveness to societal challenges, and to increase the trust of society in the science system. This prompted the Commission to make open science a policy priority, and to become a champion of this policy.
What are the EU’s key initiatives regarding Open Science?
Key initiatives in the area of open science are grouped under the Commission Communication on a new European Research Area. These consist in:
1) Launching and maintaining the open access publishing platform Open Research Europe;
2) Ensuring a EU copyright and data legislative and regulatory framework fit for research;
3) Developing the European Open Science Cloud to provide a Web of FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Re-usability) Data and services' for science in Europe;
4) Incentivising open science practices by improving the research assessment system.
Besides this, we will organise Europe-wide citizen science campaigns every two years, building on the Plastics Pirates initiative. Additionally, Horizon Europe, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation for the period 2021-2027, will feature the most comprehensive approach to open science that we have ever seen.
What do you see as the biggest hurdles on the way to Open Science? How do you think these hurdles can be overcome?
The COVID-19 pandemic was instrumental in highlighting some important challenges we face in the move towards open science:
- Current open access is often only very partial, and not full, immediate and permanent.
- Most open access papers (even the ones on COVID-19 research) do not make their underlying data available without restrictions, and those which do are without clear licenses for reuse.
- Research data score poorly on FAIRness and we do not yet have an open science data infrastructure that is sustainable and interoperable. Luckily, the European Open Science Cloud is making quick progress towards this goal.
An underlying crucial obstacle that we had identified right from the start but that is complex to overcome, is the current research assessment system. Too often, it still focuses on publications in so-called high impact journals, rather than on rewarding the intrinsic quality and impact of the research, and the implementation of open science practices.
Solving these challenges requires coordinated action. Under the new European Research Area, we are working with all research stakeholders and the EU Member States towards developing solutions. As research knows no borders, we also participate in many international dialogues, keeping in mind that open science must be as inclusive as possible and leave no-one out, in particular in developing countries.
Many researchers are deterred from publishing in open access journals by the high APCs charged by the publishers. How could the EU solve this problem?
We recently saw indeed some extremely high prices requested by some publishers for their most ‘exclusive’ journals. However, ensuring open access does not always require the payment of a fee! Open access can be provided either by publishing in an open access venue, which could be subject to a fee or not, but it can also be provided through repositories, that are usually operated by universities or other research institutions. Under Horizon Europe, we in fact require beneficiaries to ensure open access to peer-reviewed publications via what we call ‘trusted’ repositories: so there is no obligation to publish in an open access journal or even pay high fees.
Through the Horizon Europe’s Work Programmes 2021-2022 on Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area and on Research infrastructures we also proposed a competitive funding for providing support to institutional not-for-profit open access initiatives across Europe to improve their efficiency, coordination and technological alignment, and to enhance the quality of their non-technological services to researchers.
Last but not least, we launched Open Research Europe (ORE), our open access publishing platform that offers the opportunity to Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe grantees to publish in a high-quality venue and free of charge.
What challenges did you face creating the ORE platform and what’s in the future for this innovative way of scientific publishing?
Open Research Europe has already published more than 120 articles, across various fields of research. For the first time, the Commission embraced the challenge of running a publishing platform and providing editorial and peer-review services to its grantees. This was very new to many of us in the Commission, but everyone in the consortium selected through a competitive procurement procedure is working hard to build its reputation as a high-quality venue and to get it known as widely as possible.
For the future, we plan to foster the outreach of the platform and its attractiveness across different research communities by creating ‘collections’ of curated content by editors, and thematic blogs directed to specific communities of research. Subscribe to the newsletter to get all the latest news and follow the Twitter account.
What new Open Science related requirements can be expected from the Horizon Europe programme? How will Horizon Europe benefit the research community besides funding?
Everything that you should know about open science in Horizon Europe is publically available. We have in particular strengthened open access rights and obligations for grantees. Horizon Europe requires immediate open access to all scientific publications, and responsible research data management so that data are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable (FAIR). Research data is expected be made as open as possible, but as in Horizon 2020, it remains allowed to stay as closed as necessary, in order to safeguard legitimate interests or constraints. A novelty, however, is that access to research outputs shall be provided for third parties to be able to verify or validate publications.
The criteria for evaluating research proposals under Horizon Europe will take into account the quality and appropriateness of the open science practices in the submitted proposals. This includes societal engagement (for instance citizen science), in line with our focus on open collaborative work between knowledge actors. We will assess this as part of the project’s methodology, under the excellence award criterion. This will provide a strong incentive for applicants and beneficiaries to practice open science.
Why all this? Because making research more open, collaborative, and transparent will benefit all researchers and the entire research and innovation system. It will lead to increased quality, efficiency, and impact of research, and contribute to bringing science closer to society. It will also lead to increased reproducibility of science. Lack of reproducibility in Europe is a major problem and we analysed this in depth in a recent scoping report.
What would be your message to researchers who are reluctant to openly share the results of their research out of fear to be scooped?
A common misunderstanding is that openly sharing results of research would imply giving away the possibility of being credited for the work done. This is not the case. Early sharing practices such as pre-registration and registered reports allow researchers to secure precedence over their findings and/or conclusions. While articles placed on preprint servers and datasets deposited in repositories receive a DOI and are thus citable and part of the scientific record.
What factors contribute to the success of Open Science initiatives? Could you point out any countries that, in your opinion, were successful in their Open Science policy, thus setting an example for other countries?
We find it important that no country in the European Union misses out on the benefits of open science. The process is long and complex. A successful transition to open science requires reforms at systemic, cultural and technical levels and the setting up of comprehensive policies and strategies, backed by action plans and the proper engagement of all actors in the ecosystem in implementation. This includes policy makers, research funding and research performing organisations and others.
The 2018 Commission Recommendation on Access to and Preservation of Scientific Information was the wakeup call to EU Member States for not missing the implementation of open science policy in their country. If you want to know who is good at what, the Commission periodically monitors the uptake of the Recommendation and the latest report is available via this link.
Although there has been much discussion regarding alternative research evaluation methods, many European countries still base their research assessment exclusively on bibliometrics. In your opinion, what could be done to change the situation?
There is no simple solution to such a complex issue. However, improving the current research assessment system is essential to facilitate the uptake of open science practices in a more systematic manner. A reformed research assessment system should be about putting in place a more qualitative assessment of research projects, researchers, teams and institutions, rather than using inappropriate and narrow assessment metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor. It should also consider the value and impact of a diversity of outputs and research cultures, and incentivize open collaboration and knowledge and data sharing.
In the context of the new European Research Area, we initiated in early 2021 a consultation of a wide range of stakeholders on how to facilitate and speed up changes to the research assessment system. The envisaged way forward is to reach an agreement by 2022 between research funders and research performing organisations willing and committed to implement reforms. Such an agreement will specify commonly agreed objectives, principles and actions, and will engage signatories to translate commitments into effective changes. We count on the support of researchers to this initiative!
Is open access to research data as important as open access to publications?
The good management of research data eventually leads to its level of openness. Open access to publications and open access to data are equally important, but while open access to publications must always be ensured, exceptions should be maintained on the requirements for open access to data. The Commission advocates for data to be made open under the principle “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” whereby data are open by default but could be kept closed in case legitimate interest or constraints apply.
Why access to data is important? Sharing of data contributes to trustworthy and reproducible results, avoids duplication of effort and accelerate discoveries and greater efficiency. The COVID-19 pandemic testifies to the importance of data sharing for research. Sharing the genome sequence of the virus enabled the fastest development of new vaccines in history.
2021-10-26