The OSPP final report takes stock on the progress in Open Science showing a vision for an equitable shared knowledge system based on common standards by 2030.
The Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP) published its final report on 2 June. The report concludes the expert group’s second two-year mandate, which terminated in May 2020, and provides an overview of the commitments for implementation of the group during the entire four years 2016-2020. In addition, the report also gives an update on the progress in Open Science (OS) of each stakeholder group with examples, a perspective on the major blockers to progress and finally a vision of the 25 OSPP key stakeholder representatives for moving beyond OS and creating a ‘shared knowledge system’ by 2030.
The OSPP is a Commission Expert Group established by DG-RTD, who provides advice about the development and implementation of Open Science policy in Europe. It was established in May 2016. Its 25 members are high-level individuals representing the broad constituency of European science stakeholders. They include the main university associations and alliances, research organisations, publishers, academies, open science platforms and Science Europe as a representation of research funders. The OSPP has been advising the Commission in two mandates from May 2016-2018 and from May 2018-2020 respectively.
During the second mandate, OSPP activities built strongly on a set of prioritised actionable recommendations concerning eight OS principles, which the group adopted in April 2018. These principles focused namely on the following topics: rewards and incentives, research indicators and next-generation metrics, future of scholarly communication, European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reproducible) data, research integrity, skills and education and citizen science. The group concludes that there has been reasonable progress on the first two principles, with some initiatives moving into the implementation phase. The EOSC is moving towards its implementation phase too; it is establishing itself as a European Partnership under Horizon Europe as we speak. Key to the EOSC’s success is FAIR data, which will according to stakeholders, soon be common practice. Progress and awareness however differ between disciplines. Scholarly publication is moving towards open practices, assisted by cOAlition S and the associated Plan S. While research performing organisations and scientific societies feel that the topics of research integrity as well as skills and education have also moved towards adoption, research funders suggest that progress is still at the early stage of discussion rather than implementation. Next steps will thus require a constructive dialogue between the stakeholder groups. Finally yet importantly, citizen science remains at a planning stage according to stakeholders, despite many advances by the community.
The disparity in the assessment of progress for the areas of research integrity, skills and education and citizen science as described above suggests a need for better discussion among stakeholder groups in order to move ahead without risking a divergence in implementation and a polarisation between actors. Another challenge is the dilemma faced by businesses and industry in adopting OS principles whilst complying with requirements for intellectual property rights (IPR) and commercial practices. Academia and private players will need to debate the OS practices in public-private partnerships with a view to not disadvantaging already underprivileged players. The OSPP also identified a lack in OS policy alignment across local, regional, national and international jurisdictions as a reason for the partially slow progress.
The report states that OS is not a goal in itself, it must be embedded into a more systemic effort to foster practices and processes, which enable the creation, contribution, discovery and reuse of scientific knowledge in a reliable, effective and more equitable way making research truly excellent. The 25 stakeholder representatives within the OSPP consequently call on private and public actors to help create a ‘Research System based on shared knowledge’ by 2030. Such a system shall distinguish itself with five characteristic attributes. 1. The academic career structure shall foster outputs and practices in a way to maximise contributions to a shared research knowledge system. Hitherto, the Research Data Alliance will spearhead a new collaborative platform to share the outcome of pilots and other initiatives. 2. EU Member States shall coordinate a series of workshops to develop a set of community-based standards for creating a reliable, transparent and trustworthy research system. 3. The future research system shall enable innovation. 4. All actors shall work together to create a research culture that facilitates diversity and equity of opportunity. 5. The future research system shall build on evidence-based policy and practice. To this last aim, the OSPP recommends a coordinated strategy for funding and delivering a programme of ‘research on research’, which will integrate representatives from all key stakeholders.