Response to UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science
James Wilsdon
Director of the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) and professor of research policy at the University of Sheffield (UK).
In her superb warts-and-all institutional ethnography of UNESCO, published in 2018, the archaeologist Lynn Meskell concludes that, despite its various shortcomings, “if UNESCO did not exist we would have to invent it. Without its contributions in the fields of education, science and culture it is all too easy to imagine a world in ruins.”[1]
In its recent Recommendation on Open Science, we see UNESCO operating at its best: articulating with eloquence and force the case for open scholarship at a global scale, and explaining with clarity and concision the links and interdependencies between openness and broader social priorities, as reflected in the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
At a time when ideologies opposed to universalism, multilateralism, and collaboration are gaining ground in many parts of the world—exacerbated by greed, corruption, and exploitation of common assets and resources—the scientific system is as vulnerable as it has always been to reflecting both the best and the worst of society’s wider tendencies.
Moves towards open research have gained significant ground over the past twenty years, but this progress remains fragile, under-resourced, and at times willfully or unintentionally blind to the fresh inequalities and pressures it can create—particularly for researchers and institutions in the global south.
For me, the greatest strengths of the UNESCO statement are its breadth and holism—unlike some declarations in this field, it speaks with an authentically international chorus of voices. It reasserts the need for cultural, linguistic, and disciplinary pluralism, and reminds us that openness is ultimately a means to more fundamental ends. The recommendation returns repeatedly to the importance of infrastructures and incentives, which need to be financed, sustained, and better aligned.
By emphasising the need for both “diverse paths” to open science and the protection of multilingualism and traditional forms of knowledge, UNESCO points towards an open-science future that is more colourful, creative, co-created and connected to the hopes and aspirations of various communities than are the research systems we inhabit today. UNESCO’s vision offers not a single, rigid template, but an open-science recipe book from which we can mix and match those ingredients that make sense in various places, to specific disciplines, and at specific times.
Can UNESCO’s recommendation accelerate progress? Perhaps—hopefully—in small and incremental ways. Yet, as Lynn Meskell observes of UNESCO as a whole, “…the real and unstated problem is that we imagine international organizations to be more powerful than they really are and expect them to deliver on impossible promises.”
We know that open science can’t be achieved purely through global statements or declarations, however well-intentioned or finely crafted. We know that these are complex, systemic, entrenched challenges that require numerous players to change behaviours, policies, and financial models simultaneously.
But, now and then, we also need to step back and be reminded of the fundamentals: what and who all this is for, and why we are doing it. UNESCO’s Recommendation on Open Science offers such an opportunity. I expect this recommendation to become an influential reference point in the next chapter of the open-science story, with ripple effects through the next decade and beyond.
[1] Meskell, L. (2018) A Future In Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage and the Dream of Peace. Oxford University Press
