UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science – Thoughts by Marc Schiltz
Marc Schiltz, PhD, MBA
President, Science Europe
Chief Executive, Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR
The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science is a very important milestone for the open-science movement. It is the first global framework on open science, approved by government representatives from 193 countries. Furthermore, it is a surprisingly strong and forward-looking text. I would like to highlight a few items:
Open science is set in the context of fairness and equity:
“Open science should play a significant role in ensuring equity among researchers from developed and developing countries, enabling fair and reciprocal sharing of scientific inputs and outputs and equal access to scientific knowledge, for both producers and consumers of knowledge regardless of location, nationality, race, age, gender, income, socio-economic circumstances, career stage, discipline, language, religion, disability, ethnicity or migratory status, or any other grounds” (Art. 13c).
The reform of the incentive and rewards system is promoted:
“Promoting the development and implementation of evaluation and assessment systems that build on the existing efforts to improve the ways in which the scientific outputs are evaluated, such as the 2012 San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. with an increased focus on the quality of research outputs rather than quantity, and by fit-for-purpose use of diversified indicators and processes that forego the use of journal-based metrics such as the journal impact factor” (art. 20c).
And finally, it is absolutely crystal-clear what open access to publications entails:
“A paywalled method of publication, where immediate access to scientific publications is only granted in exchange for payment, is not aligned with the present Recommendation. Any transfer or licensing of copyrights to third parties should not restrict the public’s right to immediate open access to a scientific publication” (art. 7). Thus, open science implies no paywalls, zero-embargo, and open license.
To assure that open science becomes a reality, three key issues should be pushed for, globally.
1. Reshaping of the reward and incentive system in research must occur. The major issue now is to cement open science as the core practice of responsible research. For this to happen, funder open-science mandates and institutional open-science policies are not enough. Open science must become a core value of the research culture. Culture encompasses how people actually behave, as opposed to what they claim. The phrase, “I am all in favour of open science, but…” (which I have heard hundreds of times) is typically the sign of misalignment between advertised values ("we are in favour of open access") and actual practice ("but we continue to publish in prestigious paywalled journals"). It will therefore be important to truly change what we value and assess in research. We need to move away from journal impact factors, journal prestige, and all kinds of rankings (e.g., h-index at the individual level, university rankings at the level of organizations). These metrics are all built to push universities and research institutions to compete against each other in a fictitious marketplace, whereas what science really needs is collaboration, diversity, and the open sharing of research outputs, data, research infrastructures, and educational resources; as well as greater engagement with societal actors. As humanity faces major challenges - future pandemics, the loss of biodiversity, antibiotic resistance, and the existential challenge of the climate crisis - it is clear that no single researcher, no single university, no single country can provide adequate solutions to these global problems. Only the mobilisation of the entire research community can provide the necessary answers, by collaborating and by sharing results, data, infrastructures, and publications openly.
2. For decades, rightfully or not, journals were considered the gatekeepers of scientific quality. However, this has led to a system—now mostly controlled by private and commercial interests—in which selectivity, perceived popularity, and fashionableness are confused with scientific quality. Scientific quality needs an updated definition, including important aspects such as integrity, openness, collaboration, and societal engagement. A new system of quality control will need to be invented to eventually allow the emergence of new publication and sharing models (e.g., open peer review, publish-then-review, etc.), which are more appropriate to leverage given 21st century technology. This new quality-control system must remain in the hands of the scientific community.
3. Open science infrastructure needs to be created and piloted by the scientific community and remain under public oversight. In particular, future publication platforms and repositories for publications and data should be maintained by academic institutions, scholarly societies, government agencies, or other well-established, not-for-profit organizations. It is crucial that any such infrastructure be based on open-source software.
