Open science can be thought of as a present-day way of working. The strength is working together, while the challenge is to balance conducting research as openly as possible but in a responsible manner.
Watch this short introduction (3:51) on how open science benefits you, the academic community and the society (CC BY SHB Online):
Practicing open science is good for…
Practicing open science means that research outputs are accessible to all – not stuck behind paywalls. This helps to ensure that all researchers, and other stakeholders, have access to information regardless of their location or economic situation. It means that the research process can be accelerated, and new knowledge can be more quickly generated and built upon to help solve grand challenges.
Open science offers a better return on investment from research funded by public money and contributes to better economic growth.
Open science can also support fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially among poorer countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The principles of open science, which include the FAIR and open sharing of scientific research outputs, including data, are seen as an anchor to solving health, developmental, educational and social problems in a more coordinated way.
Making your research outputs findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR, see Making it FAIR) does require some additional effort on your part but practicing open science benefits you too.
For a researcher, opening the research outputs (e.g., research data, open educational resources) is a scientific merit. In Finland, e.g., in the CV templates of the Research Council of Finland and the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity, promoting open science and research and, for example, responsible distribution and reuse of research material and datasets count as scientific and societal impact in research work, and are, therefore, worth adding to your CV.
By sharing your articles, data, code, methods, and educational resources you are even multiplying the number of citable outputs for every project you work on. Your research will be more visible and understandable to others, which may mean that you might see your citation rate increase. If people can find and access your research, the potential impact of your research increases. In addition, practicing open science can foster new collaborations and research partnerships. All of which can help you to advance in your career.
So, there are many benefits of open science both for you and for society (Fig. 5).
Fig. 5. There are many benefits of open science.
Potential challenges of open science
The rationale for open science is clear but there are still concerns and issues to be tackled. Potential challenges could be:
There may still be lack of awareness of the benefits and importance of opening up research. The reluctance to change current workflows and practices, e.g., to share data along the research process. Researchers consider this a time-and effort-consuming activity to add to their existing workloads. The lack of clear recognition and a reward system that promotes open science practices. In addition to researchers and research institutions, there is also a change to be made on the part of the research funders, government bodies and other stakeholders.
Information and communication technologies have rapidly improved but there is still work to be done to support and ease researchers’ workflows towards more open practices.
There is a clear need for political commitment to promote open science and integrate it into the government agendas, also at the international level. The necessary resources need to be allocated for these policies to succeed. Commitment for policy development and strategic planning are needed both at the research institution and country level.
The working environment (e.g. university, research institution) can have a significant impact on how quickly and broadly research becomes open. A closed culture is a challenge for individual researchers and slows down the overall openness of research. Organisations need to develop and acquire the appropriate skills to support open science within their organisation.
Consider: How has your own research organisation adopted open science? Does it have open access repositories, services and policies for supporting open science?
Even if one of the main arguments for open science is a higher efficiency of research that in the long term will result in better use of resources and acceleration of innovations, significant investments must be made at the beginning to develop the technical, political and organisational ecosystem for open science.
Open science changes the way we look at ownership of data, copyright, privacy and accountability in research. Many of these changes need to be reflected in legislation and research guidelines. A clear legislation framework must be developed at the international level and researchers must be aware of this legislation.
These adversities have the potential to slow down the processes of open science. Solutions can be found by collaborating, having potential will and aligning funding with key principles.
Which of these could motivate you to create more open research practices?
More equal and democratic access to knowledge.
More efficient use of scientific information and greater opportunity for innovation.
Greater collaboration and opportunity for discovery.
Improved engagement with society and citizens.
Increased ability to resolve complex problems.
Open science as a scientific merit
Open science is a top research policy priority in Europe and globally. The European Research Area (ERA) Policy Agenda 2025–2027, among others, aims at fostering open sharing of knowledge and the re-use of research outputs in Europe.
One major obstacle in promoting open science is the prevailing academic recognition and reward systems: Currently, these systems do not adequately reward researchers for their contributions to open science.
In many countries and institutions, research assessment tends to prioritize the number of successful grant applications and traditional research outputs, particularly publications in journals with high impact factors (regardless of their openness). Other essential contributions to academia, such as teaching, mentoring, collaboration, promotion of citizen science and other engagement with society, and the integration of open science practices receive less recognition in the assessment. To convert this, the current incentive structures for researchers need to be changed.
Within YUFE (The Young Universities for the Future of Europe – an alliance of European universities of which UEF is a member), a YUFE Academic Assessment model (2023) has been developed that takes into account contributions to open science. You are welcome to explore the document. In particular, see the YUFE Academic Assessment Portfolio (pp. 16–19) and examples of open science outputs and contributions (p. 24). Consider adding open science merits to your researcher portfolio or CV as well.
To sum up this section, this video (2:31) describes the benefits of open science for researchers, institutions, funders and the public (CC BY FOSTER Open Science):
