POLICIES TO PROMOTE OPEN SCIENCE: EVIDENCE FROM OECD COUNTRIES
Giulia Ajmone Marsan Directorate for Science, Technology and
Innovation OECD
Slide 2
OECD Principles and Guidelines for Access to Research Data from
Public Funding (2006-07) Initial discussion of Open Science at CSTP
in 2011 Many open science related activities on-going (PSI, open
gov data, open educational resources, MOOCS) Once upon at time at
the OECD 2
Slide 3
Decision to ask TIP WP to work on Open Science over 2013-14
first project on Open Science at the OECD (focusing on open access
and open data mostly) Probably follow up activities in the near
future today and tomorrow 3
Slide 4
ICTs offering new possibilities to share results Science is
becoming increasingly data-driven Science: an evolving scenario 4
TDM-related scientific articles 1995-2014, per thousand article
Source: OECD (2014), Measuring the Digital Economy: A New
Perspective, OECD Publishing, Paris.
Slide 5
Main finding of forthcoming OECD report on OS 5
Slide 6
There is no formal definition of open science. In the OECD
study, the term refers to efforts by governments, research funding
agencies or the scientific community itself to make the primary
outputs of publicly funded research results publications and the
research data publicly accessible in digital format with no or
minimal restriction Some definitions... 6
Slide 7
Open data are data that can be used by anyone without technical
or legal restrictions. The use encompasses both access and reuse.
Whether such openness exists from the legal perspective depends on
the applicability of possible legal restrictions (or otherwise,
whether the restrictions are removed by a free licence). Research
data are factual records used a primary sources for scientific
research, and that are commonly accepted in the scientific
community as necessary to validate research findings. They are
collected and produced in a wide range of formats: digital
spreadsheets and databases, compilations from surveys, images, or
objects. The consultation and usage of research data often involves
use of specific computer programmes, software, etc. Some
definitions 7
Slide 8
Open science is more than open access to publications or data;
it includes many aspects and stages of research processes. Open
science is a broader concept that also includes the
interoperability of scientific infrastructure, open and shared
research methodologies (such as open applications and informatics
code), and machine-friendly tools allowing, for example, text and
data mining. But open science is more than access to research
publications and data 8
Slide 9
Improving efficiency in science Increasing transparency and
quality Speeding the transfer of knowledge Increasing knowledge
spillovers to the economy and society Addressing global challenges
more effectively Promoting citizens engagement in science Why do we
care about Open Science? 9 Open science is a means and not an ends.
Policy makers need to promote openness in science while at the same
time preserving competition. Competition is a key aspect of the
scientific enterprise: pushing for open access and open data too
early may be counterproductive in some cases.
Slide 10
PubMedCentral show that 25% of the daily unique users are from
universities, 17% from companies, 40% are individual citizens and
the rest are government or other categories (UNESCO 2012) A recent
study on R&D-intensive SMEs in Denmark (Houghton, Swan and
Brown 2011) found that 48% of those SMEs consider research outcomes
very important for their business activities and more than 2/3
reported difficulties in accessing research material Ware (2009)
conducted a survey on UK SMEs and found evidence that the
equivalent of 10% to 20% of articles were not easily accessible for
his survey respondents 10 OA can also contribute to
innovationbut
Slide 11
Open science a relatively new phenomenon (at least for policy
makers) Evidence on open access citation advantage (but
quantification of this advantage is subjected to debate) Different
behaviours in different fields (why? Over time?) Scientists tends
to like open science in surveys (what about in reality?) Many
estimates of the economic impact of data sharing (mostly on open
gov data) Fewer estimates on research data sharing impact
especially on innovation the impacts of open science need to be
fully understood 11 Need to assess these impacts (to whom and on
what?)
Slide 12
The open science ecosystem: a complex picture 12 Researchers
Government ministries Research funding agencies Universities and
PROs Libraries, repositories, data centers Private no profit
organisations and foundations Private scientific publishers
Businesses IGOs
Slide 13
Open science policies should be principle-based but adapted to
local realities. Open science policies require a diversity of
approaches, taking into account the needs of the different actors
involved in research projects. For example, if a research project
involves business sector partners and commercial interests are
present, the requirements for sharing research results may be
different from the case in which only public actors are involved.
In other cases, privacy or confidentiality concerns may apply to
the treatment of certain classes of individual data. Consultative
approaches that involve all relevant actors for open science are a
key component of successful open science strategies. Open science
efforts involve different communities and different actors:
researchers, governmental institutions, universities and research
centres, libraries and data centres, private non-profit
organisations, business sector organisations including private
academic publishers, supra-national entities, citizens, etc. These
actors do not necessarily have the same incentives, goals or
expectations. A successful strategy needs to take into account this
diversity, and react accordingly. As a consequence: 13
Slide 14
Open science: a hot issue for OECD and non- OECD countries 14
National STI strategy or plan
Slide 15
Open data policies and initiatives 15
Slide 16
The National Policy on Management of Research Data and
Scientific Information: developed in order to implement the OECD
Recommendations on Access to Research Data from Public Funding,
designed in 2012 in order to optimize and rationalize the use of
public resources involved in the generation and manage of
knowledge; increase the access to research data and scientific
information; reach international standards in the matter of access
to research data, considering OECD recommendations Chile 16
Slide 17
China Scientific Data Sharing Programme since 2001 To break the
data barrier before 1990s. To date, supported by the Programme, 24
platforms have been established to share scientific data from
public funding, especially the observational data and basic data.
1500 S&T projects and engineering projects benefited from the
data sharing. Data exchange with foreign organizations and
institutions. 17
Slide 18
The Open Science and Research Initiative was established in
2014 by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture focuses also
on research data Focus on data management plans, data storage and
preservation in the long run Skills are a key component of the
strategy: guidelines for data management have been developed for
researchers and scientist Finland 18
Slide 19
In the Priority Initiative Digital Information of the Alliance
of the German Science Organisations has dedicated working group
focusing on research data. In June 2010, the Alliance of German
Science Organisations adopted Principles for the Handling of
Research Data, to establish structures to enable the collection,
archiving and subsequent reuse of primary research data in all
applicable disciplines. Focus on Skills The major research
organisations are actively contributing to strengthen OA and OD.
This includes rising awareness and providing information for
scientists as well as offering support and advice: e.g. the
Helmholtz Association has established regular training courses on
managing research data with regard to Open Science. Germany 19
Slide 20
Sharing research data is encouraged but not mandatory: the
Foundation for Science and Technology encourages (although it does
not mandate) researchers to share the data resulting from research
activities partially or totally funded by FCT, while assuring the
protection of privacy and confidentiality Researchers are also
encouraged to develop data management plans to ensure preservation
Portugal 20
Slide 21
Open research data Research Councils (RCUKs) Guidance on Open
Access states that all research papers, if applicable, should
include a statement on how underlying research materials (such as
data) can be accessed. However, the policy does not require that
the data must be made open Focus on Skills Much skills policy in
the UK surrounds providing skills training to students in numerical
subjects. These skills policies are focused more around teaching
students and academics how to use the big data sets that will
emerge out of open data, rather than skills necessary for open
science policies per se Large scale projects: The Open Data
Institute: this 10m project will provide data from across the
public sector on an open access basis to enable industrial and
academic exploitation 160m investment in high-performance computing
and networks (2011): the investments included high capacity
networking, a national supercomputing facility and for the Hartree
centre, offering leading edge supercomputing capabilities alongside
software development expertise for industrial, academic,
governmental and research organisations. 189m investment in Big
Data: these investments included energy efficient computing,
establishing a network of Administrative Data Research Centres (the
ADRN), and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) platforms. The United
Kingdom 21
Slide 22
the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)
memo explicitly refers to access to digital data Focus on Skills
The OSTP Memo directs federal science agencies to coordination with
other agencies and the private sector to support training,
education, and workforce development related to scientific data
management, analysis, storage, preservation, and stewardship The
United States 22
Slide 23
Policy measures may include different efforts and initiatives,
such as: enablers, incentive mechanisms or mandatory rules Open
science policy trends: enablers, incentives and requirements 23
Enablers are, for example, the infrastructure developed to share
articles or data, initiatives undertaken to develop an open science
culture, amendments to the legal framework to make them
increasingly open-science friendly or the development of the skills
necessary for researchers to share and re-use the research outputs
produced by others.
Slide 24
ICT Infrastructure: Argentina has developed the SICyTAR
database with information on the CVs, publications and affiliations
of researchers In Spain, RECOLECTA is the national repositories and
main infrastructure that allows researchers and other stakeholders
to freely archive and access research publications in Mexico,
CONACYT supports the creation of institutional repositories Skills:
the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture created a Data
Management Guide to teach researchers to develop data management
plans in the UK, the Data Capability Strategy focuses on human
capital and skill development for data analytics as well as data
accessibility and data sharing skills in consumers, business and
academia. The creation of centers for doctoral training on big data
has been announced in several universities and higher education
institutions in the country Legal framework: Australia, Finland are
currently discussing modifications of the existing legal framework
around the publication of publicly funded research results to make
the copyright legislation increasingly open science friendly
Germany has modified the national copyright law to grants
scientists the right to upload publications on the internet even if
they have transferred all exploitation rights to the publisher the
UK has recently passed a series of amendments to its copyright
legal framework (coming into force in 2014), which include a
greater freedom of re-use of copied or recorded material for
education and non- commercial research purposes For example 24
Slide 25
Data-related skill development is essential. Researchers skills
needed for sharing articles or data sets openly on line are
unevenly distributed. Some disciplines such as computer science or
physics may have a longer tradition of uploading research material
on repositories and curating and maintaining large data sets.
Researchers in other disciplines, however, may need to be trained
to develop the necessary skills to make open science happen. At the
same time, students and citizens need to acquire the skills to take
advantage of, use and reuse data set shared by the research
community. Some countries are currently developing data science
curricula to address this issue. Clear legal frameworks for the
sharing of publications and reuse of data sets are needed at the
national and international levels. A lack of clarity on the
interpretation of national and international legal frameworks may
prevent the sharing or reuse of research results. In addition,
clear guidelines around text and data mining are needed, as this
tool will become increasingly used by researchers in the future.
Some OECD countries are currently discussing or have recently
modified national legal frameworks to make them increasingly open
science-friendly. Training of and awareness-raising among
researchers is important for the development of an open science
culture. Recent surveys on the behaviour of scientists reveal that
not all researchers are necessarily aware of the possibilities
offered by open science. In some countries, different institutions
regularly organise workshops and training sessions to make
researchers aware of these possibilities. Repositories and online
platforms will not have impact if the information they contain is
not of good quality. If repositories are not user-friendly and the
data sets they contain have not been properly cleaned and curated,
or the metadata have not been sufficiently developed, it may be
difficult to maximise their usage. Policy messages in the OECD
report 25
Slide 26
Policy measures may include different efforts and initiatives,
such as: enablers, incentive mechanisms or mandatory rules Open
science policy trends: enablers, incentives and requirements 26
Carrots (incentive mechanisms) may be in the form of financial
incentives to cover open access publishing or the release of
datasets. They may also be in the form of proper acknowledgment of
open science efforts of researchers and academics, for instance in
the form of data set citations or career advancement mechanisms
partly based on metrics that take into account open science or data
sharing efforts.
Slide 27
Better incentive mechanisms to promote data-sharing practices
among researchers are needed. While all public sector researchers
have an interest in maximising the sharing of published research
articles, the same is not true for research data sets, especially
at the pre-publication stage. In addition, data cleaning and
curation (for example, by developing metadata) is a time-consuming
activity that is rarely acknowledged in evaluation mechanisms or
grant allocation procedures. Most evaluations of universities and
researchers are almost entirely based on teaching and bibliometric
indicators, attributing little value to the sharing of
pre-publication inputs and post-publication outcomes, such as data
and other relevant information. Extending citation mechanisms to
data sets can partly address this issue. Policy messages in the
OECD report 27
Slide 28
Policy measures may include different efforts and initiatives,
such as: enablers, incentive mechanisms or mandatory rules Open
science policy trends: enablers, incentives and requirements 28
Sticks (mandatory rules) are often implemented in the form of
requirements in research grant agreements or in some cases are
defined in national strategies or institutional policy
frameworks.
Slide 29
major funding agencies in Australia, Costa Rica, Denmark,
Estonia, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United
States have mandated public access to the results of the research
they fund More countries are also considering adopting rules for
mandatory open access and data management plans For example 29
Slide 30
The long-term preservation costs of openly available research
output need to be considered. Open access is not without costs.
Many governments and research institutions are currently bearing
the costs of offering open access to articles and to data, as well
as the costs of storage and the preservation of data sets on line.
Given the rapidly increasing amounts of data, public institutions
will be challenged to find sustainable funding and business models.
Public- private partnerships with private service providers may
offer innovative solutions. Policy messages in the OECD report
30
Slide 31
Science and research do not stop at borders. Co-ordinated
international efforts facilitate transfer of knowledge. Examples of
international efforts to promote open science and overcome barriers
include: and Open science: international efforts 31 OECD principles
(2007) UNESCO: Open Access Policy Guidelines 2012; Charter for the
Preservation of the Digital Heritage In Europe, Horizon2020 open
science requirements, as promoted by the European Commission LAC
countries: LA Referencia, a federated network of national
repositories of scientific documentation for 9 LAC countries,
financed by Inter American Bank
Slide 32
International collaboration in the area of open science is
necessary to address global challenges. International collaboration
is becoming more important than ever, as publications and data in
electronic form travel across national frontiers. Shared and
interoperable infrastructure is necessary to disseminate research
results and promote scientific collaboration. Such efforts can help
avoid the duplication of effort, as well as helping share the risks
or the associated investments. In addition, BRIC countries Brazil,
China and India are also adopting open science policies and data
infrastructure roadmaps. International co-ordination and co-
operation in this area will become even more important as the
global production of knowledge and R&D increasingly shifts
towards the emerging economies. Furthermore, tackling global
challenges will require greater access to and sharing of national
public research data sets and consequently, greater co-operation at
a global level. Policy messages in the OECD report 32
Slide 33
Summing up Policies to promote open data are less mature than
those to promote open access to scientific publications. While the
principle of open access to scientific data is well established in
OECD countries, the scope of access varies greatly across
countries. This is due to the fact that data sets are not as easily
identified and defined as scholarly research articles. Diversity of
scientific data and differing traditions and standards in their
treatment are also issues. Some of the additional challenges
related to data sets include the definition of ownership of
large-scale data sets, potentially collected by machines or
software providers; privacy; confidentiality; and even national
security issues. In addition, certain classes of data, such as
medical and biological records, are particularly sensitive due to
privacy issues. Many funding agencies are introducing open access
requirements however, few policies targeting incentives other than
funding are in place Many initiatives to invest in open access
enablers (online platform, repositories, ) but less attention to
skills development
Slide 34
Thank you 34 OECD report on Open Science Policy Trends will be
released soon on: https://www.innovationpolicyplatform.org/
[email protected]