Culture of Open Scholarship
The discussions on the culture of open science and scholarship include e.g. responsible practices related to the merit of the researcher and the evaluation of the research, services needed for open science and research, and opportunities and challenges created by inclusive citizen science.
The terms open science and open scholarship are often used interchangeably and interpreted widely.
International Policies and Recommendations on Open Science and Open Scholarship
There are several comprehensive international open science recommendations and policies. We have listed some of the most influential recommendations below:
1) League of European Research Universities’ (LERU)
LERU's publication from 2018 emphasises the necessity of cultural change in universities to enable reaping the benefits of open science. It also introduces eight pillars of open science.
2) UNESCO’s Open Science Recommendation (2021)
UNESCO's recommendation suggests new pillars of open science. According to Unesco, open science is defined as an inclusive construct that combines various movements and practices aiming
- to make multilingual scientific knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone,
- to increase scientific collaborations and the sharing of information to benefit science and society, and
- to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community.
3) European Union's Open Science policy
Open science is a policy priority for the European Commission and the standard method of working in its research and innovation funding programmes as open science improves the quality, efficiency and responsiveness of research.
European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
While not a policy but an infrastructure, EOSC is closely tied with the European Union's open science polices as well as mentioned in the LERU open science roadmap. The ambition of EOSC is to provide European researchers, innovators, companies and citizens with a federated and open multi-disciplinary environment where they can publish, find and reuse data, tools and services for research, innovation and educational purposes.
Other useful resources on open science and open scholarship are provided by e.g.
- Research Data Alliance (RDA),
- Committee on Data (CODATA),
- Association of European Research Libraries (Liber),
- Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Europe, and
- European University Association (EUA).
League of European Research Universities (LERU)
The League of European Research Universities suggests a culture change in the way stakeholders in the research, education and knowledge exchange communities create, store, share and deliver the outputs of their activity in order for universities to embrace open science principles, policies and practices.
UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science
UNESCO’s Recommendation on Open Science presents a very broad view of open science, adding open engagement of societal actors and open dialogue with other knowledge systems to the definition.
European Union Open Science Policy
Open science is a policy priority for the European Commission and the standard method of working under its research and innovation funding programmes as it improves the quality, efficiency and responsiveness of research.
European Open Science Cloud
European Open Science Cloud is built to offer the infrastructure for European research and development activities.
National Recommendations on Open Science, Research and Scholarship
Finland was one of the first countries to publish an open scholarship policy in 2022. The policy includes, among others, recommendations for citizen science (in Finnish) and business collaboration (in Finnish).
The Declaration of Open Science and Research and the full list of other national open science policies and recommendations are listed below.
National Open Scholarship Policy
Finland was one of the first countries to publish an open scholarship policy in 2022. The policy includes, among others, recommendations for citizen science and business collaboration.
Citizen Science
Citizen science and citizens’ participation have emerged as new models of scientific research. Citizen science refers to engaging the public in research following scientifically valid methodologies and frequently carried out with web-based platforms and social media.
Recommendation on Business Collaboration
Open Science Recommendation and Checklist for Collaborative Research, Development and Innovation in Research Organizations and Business .
National Declaration, Policies and Recommendations of Open Science and Reasearch
The open science declaration offers a unified direction and vision, seamlessly integrating open science and research into researchers' everyday work.
Responsible Researcher Assessment
The assessment of research and researchers is currently a prominent subject in and outside the academic world. Researcher assessment (for recruiting, personal bonuses, project funding, expert tasks etc.) influences what is being studied by funding allocations, merits and structural processes of research organisations.
The new developments in the research assessment and the use of metrics are collected in the research assessment page.