The future of research needs open science

The pandemic highlighted the need for more transparent and democratic science. The world was able to produce vaccines in record time, thanks to the opening up of knowledge and largescale cooperation. This approach, which is the one favoured by open science, is becoming increasingly important in universities and public research systems, and is part of the transition advocated by the European Commission.

Recent research, led by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and published in the open access scientific journal PLOS One, reveals the advances and challenges that researchers face in adopting this new paradigm.

The study – coordinated by Candela Ollé, researcher and member of the Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences, with the participation of Alexandre López-Borrull, from the Learning, Media and Entertainment (GAME) research group – was based on the responses of more than 500 researchers from various disciplines and fields, who were asked about four essential aspects of open science: open access to scientific publications, open data, the publication process, and peer reviews.

Researchers' concerns

One of the main findings was that, despite growing interest in the topic, there is a general lack of awareness of the principles and practices of open science. Indeed, around a third of the researchers confessed that they had no clear idea about what this new model entailed, despite the guidelines, mandates and growing body of legislation on this topic.

"What we saw is that a lot of awareness-raising, training and persuasion is still needed," said Ollé. "In order to move forward, open science has to move on from the question of what, and start asking how."

The study revealed a number of barriers that hinder the adoption of open science among researchers. Among the main concerns were financial constraints regarding the cost of open access publication, lack of training in data management, and guarantees of confidentiality and privacy for research data.

Open science as a model for the future

Despite these challenges, the study also identified a number of promising advances in this field. For example, more than half of the researchers surveyed stated that they had published in open access journals in the last two years with peer review systems, suggesting a growing acceptance of this practice.

The Budapest and Berlin declarations of 2001 and 2003, respectively, and, later, the Bucharest Declaration of 2012 have served to reaffirm the international basis of this movement. In Spain, the 2022 Law on Science and the recent Catalan Open Science Strategy are also committed to strengthening this approach.

"Open science is a way of returning to the community the knowledge acquired by academia and establishing a fairer system," explained Ollé. "In addition, incorporating certain elements of citizen science allows us to take the problems that interest society into account more directly."

Recommendations for moving forward

To overcome the barriers to consolidating this new paradigm, the study makes certain recommendations. Researchers must insist that academic institutions provide technical, financial and training support. Academic libraries need to work systematically with groups that are less familiar with open access publication and raise awareness of how to safeguard confidentiality in view of the practices of scientific journals. Finally, universities should open an internal debate to promote assessment methods that do not depend exclusively on the impact factor.

According to Ollé, we are at a key moment, as a firm commitment from all the stakeholders will only be obtained if the mechanisms used to implement this model are fine-tuned. "Until now we've been in the first phase of what we've defined as open science, but now we must follow up in order to progress." This will allow us to move towards a research system that is more transparent, inclusive and accessible for all.

Open science at the UOC

The UOC is committed, as an institution, to open knowledge and to reforming research assessment. Regarding the former, the university is updating its Action Plan to cover the years until 2027. The Office of the Deputy General Manager for Research and Knowledge Transfer is committed to offering ongoing training to teachers, researchers and doctoral students, with support services provided by the Open Science unit, for the open access publication of data, articles and other documents of interest. Currently more than 70% of the UOC's research output is available entirely in open access.

With regard to assessment, the university signed the San Francisco Declaration (DORA) in 2019 and in 2022 it was one of the institutions driving the international Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), comprising more than 700 organizations. This year the 2024-2027 CoARA Action Plan was approved and published; the working group drafting the plan was coordinated by Pastora Martínez Samper, commissioner for international action. It contains four key commitments: to recognize the diversity of contributions and careers; to use qualitative assessment (peer review) supported by the responsible use of quantitative indicators; to end the inappropriate use of bibliometric data based on journals and publications; and to avoid the use of institutional rankings in assessing research.

The review of research assessment systems is part of the European Commission's public policy agenda, as approved in the ERA Policy Agenda 2022-2024.

Candela Ollé's research contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as number 4, Quality Education.

Reference paper

Candela Ollé, Alexandre López-Borrull, Remedios Melero, Juan-José Boté-Vericad, Josep Manuel Rodríguez-Gairín, Ernest Abadal. Habits and perceptions regarding open science by researchers from Spanish institutions. Publication: 13 July 2023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288313

UOC R&I

The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) is helping overcome pressing challenges faced by global societies in the 21st century by studying interactions between technology and human & social sciences with a specific focus on the network society, e-learning and e-health.

Over 500 researchers and more than 50 research groups work in the UOC's seven faculties, its eLearning Research programme and its two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

The university also develops online learning innovations at its eLearning Innovation Center (eLinC), as well as UOC community entrepreneurship and knowledge transfer via the Hubbik platform.

Open knowledge and the goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development serve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation. More information: research.uoc.edu.