In its recent opinion, the ERAC Standing Working Group on Open Science and Innovation calls for better coordination and a federated approach in Europe.
On 7 April, the European Research Area and Innovation Committee (ERAC) Standing Working Group on Open Science and Innovation (SWG OSI) presented its ‘Opinion on Future Open Science and Open Innovation Priorities in the ERA (2020-2030)’. The working group is responsible for providing policy advice and recommendations to ERAC on Open Science and Open Innovation issues, and is promoting the top action priority five (out of six) of the ERA Roadmap 20125-2020: the implementation of Open Access (OA) and knowledge transfer policies at national level in order to maximise the dissemination, uptake and exploitation of scientific results.
The now published opinion is based on evidence from the SWG OSI’s 2019 monitoring exercise on the ERA National Action Plans and on a short nine-question survey of its members (answers from 18 countries not including Switzerland) investigating into dedicated national Open Science and Open Innovation plans and initiatives. It is divided into two sections, first an analysis on ‘where do we stand’, and second a chapter on ‘the next challenges ahead’, including recommendations on how to address them in the context of the future ERA.
The main conclusions of the document are that most countries answering the survey do have an Open Science Plan or are in the process of developing such a plan or strategy. In general, Open Science is given more attention than Open Innovation in national and institutional plans and policies; only two (Austria and the Netherlands) of the respondent countries have a formal Open Innovation strategy. While there is a diversity between paths towards Open Science in different countries and the level of implementation varies greatly, there is also some thematic convergence emerging across the ERA. Most of the recent developments relate to Open Research Data infrastructures and the implementation of OA mandates. Changes in copyright legislation or the methods used for the evaluation of researchers, however, are few, as are Citizen Science policies, where activities and focus greatly vary. In part, this convergence also arises from collective endeavours at European or international level, such as Plan S or the Research Data Alliance, launched by the European Commission and international partners.
The SWG OSI sees one of the existing shortcomings in the still much-needed change of the academic culture in order to support Open Science on the ground, and in the lack of incentives and rewards for researchers. The traditional knowledge ecosystems of research production-evaluation-dissemination and current copyright rules will have to undergo change, in order to become Open Science and Open Innovation friendly. The group also notes a lack of coordination and inclusiveness and calls for a more federated approach in Europe. Such an approach should comprise copyright legal frameworks, research evaluation practices and monitoring of Open Science and Open Innovation, which are homogenous and interoperable beyond national borders and adhere to the principles or FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reproducible). The OSI group promotes the quadruple helix model of interactions between universities, industry, government and citizens, and asks to put Open Innovation more prominently onto the policy agenda and provide more favourable conditions for Open Innovation uptake within and beyond industry.
The opinion finally concludes that a lot has happened under the ERA priority five, since the inception of the SWG OSI in 2016, but there are still challenges to be tackled. Similarly, there are also large-scale initiatives that still require finalising, such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). To support the necessary cultural change towards Open Science and Open Innovation in academia, new networks and alliances, such as the European University Alliances, also promoted by the European Universities Initiative, could play a major role.