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3 YEAR STRATEGY RWS
Authored by the OpenAIRE Standing Committee on Open Science strategies Edited by Natalia Manola / CEO, Inge Van Nieuwerburgh / chair of the Executive Board, Eloy Rodrigues / member of the Executive Board, Prodromos Tsiavos / legal advisor. Eloy Rodrigues, Univ. of Minho (Portugal) chair Inge Van Nieuwerburgh, Ghent University (Belgium) co-chair Christine Berthaud, CCSD-HAL (France) André Dazy, COUPERIN (France) Laurence El Khouri, CNRS (France) Romain Féret, Univ. of Lille (France) Gultekin Gurdal, IIT (Turkey) Mihaela Hubert, Univ. of Vienna (Austria, Nina Karlstrøm, Unit (Norway) Bénédicte Kuntziger, CCSD-HAL (France) Iryna Kuchma, EIFL (Lithuania), Frank Manista, JISC (UK) Members of OpenAIRE SC on Open Science strategies Graphic Design: Vasilis Michalainas Gerda McNeill, Univ. of Vienna (Austria) Najla Rettberg, Univ. of Göttingen (Germany) Pilar Rico, FECYT (Spain) Sylvie Rousset, CNRS (France) Michal Růžička, Masaryk University (Czech Republic) Jochen Schirrwagen, Univ. of Bielefeld (Germany) Kaja Slonina, Univ. of Malta (Malta) Tim Smith, CERN (Switzerland) Birgit Schmidt, Univ. of Göttingen (Germany) Jadranka Stojanovski, Ruđer Bošković Institute (Croatia) Gintare Tautkeviciene, KTU (Lithuania) Erzsébet Tóth-Czifra, DARIAH-EU (Germany) Josianne Camilleri Vella, Univ. of Malta (Malta) Last modified 26/9/2022
PREAMBLE OpenAIRE AMKE was established in 2018 as a non-profit and sustainable organisation, acting as a European-wide network of Open Science experts and implementers and providing e-infrastructure to support open scholarly communication globally. Since its inception, the need for a clear strategy, identifying the priorities for OpenAIRE, has emerged. The Open Science Strategies Standing Committee initiated the discussion identified strategic priorities and suggested concrete lines of action. The first draft was subsequently opened for comments from members in other standing committees and in the end, by our entire member base. During this process, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the landscape in Europe significantly evolved. This had quite an influence on the strategy itself. The five strategic priorities outlined in this document connect to the global effort to drive forward open scholarly communication. Guided by these priorities, OpenAIRE will be able to assess and decide on the operation, improvement and development of its services, its participation in projects and initiatives, and on partnerships and collaborations to foster. Our strategy, accompanied by a 3-year action plan, will increase the impact of OpenAIRE in advancing open scholarly communication and make our community-driven organisation an even stronger and recognised voice on the Open Science landscape in Europe and beyond. We also hope that it will serve as a motivational tool inspiring our members and the broader community to work towards a common goal: pushing the agenda forward, taking it to the next level and shaping the Open Scholarly Communication ecosystem in Europe and beyond. Enjoy the read! Inge Van Nieuwerburgh Chair of the Executive Board Eloy Rodrigues Member of the Executive Board
Contents
- OpenAIRE today 5 10
- Key strategic areas of priority 9
- The Open Science environment 21 4.Turning strategy into actions 31
- Supporting the strategy
5
OpenAIRE is a non-profit organisation that
brings together research institutions who
have been in the forefront of Open Access
developments since the early days of the
movement. It federates the European
open scholarly communication communi-
ty of currently 47 member organisations by
encouraging collaboration and knowl-
edge sharing, and by developing and
Scholarly communication is an integral part of the research ecosystem
and familiar to researchers, their institutions and their societies. Open Scholarly
Communication is key for advancing science and knowledge as a whole. It pro-
vides an infrastructural glue for sharing and re-using data, information, knowledge
and is in the core of making Open Science happen.
1.
TODAY
operating services to accelerate the
implementation and uptake of Open
Science. As Europe and the world is
progressing towards a more holistic
approach of Open Science, OpenAIRE
reiterates
its
mission
and
commitment to be a frontrunner in
this transformation process.
Open Scholarly
Communication reduces
the barriers to the research
process, increasing
dissemination of knowledge and
discovery by researchers and
society, making them
available online with as few
restrictions as possible.
Scholarly Communication
is the system through which
research and other scholarly
outputs are created, evaluated
and reviewed, disseminated to
the scholarly community, and
preserved for future use.
6 IN A NUTSHELL OUR VISION Transform society through validated scientific knowledge and allow researchers, educators, funders, civil servants and industry to find ways to make science useful for themselves, their working environ- ments and society. OUR MISSION Shift scholarly communication towards openness and transparency, mobilising R&I actors to co-develop, co-invest and assume co-owner- ship of an open scholarly communication ecosystem. OpenAIRE is an e-Infrastructure for Open Scholarly Communication acting as a:
- Service Provider - developing and operating services to embed and acceler- ate Open Science practices.
- Network - accelerating Open Science uptake through a distributed Open
Science helpdesk with a European footprint. 3. Scholarly Communication market mediator – identifying, enabling and
promoting novel solutions and models for sharing and re-using research outcomes.
OUR VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
Open
Governance:
OpenAIRE
members have the power to influence all
decision-making processes, its steering
and shape its services. OpenAIRE
welcomes interested parties to get
involved in continuing its mission to
provide
the
necessary
services,
resources and network for supporting a
common open e-research and e-science
environment.
Inclusion and diversity: Respecting
and
appreciating
the
diversity
of
research practices and infrastructure,
while maintaining a European footprint,
OpenAIRE relies on the work and
infrastructure of its members with the
goal to shape an inclusive digital future
for Open Scholarly Communication, with
no European country left behind and
without losing the global perspective.
Users in the centre: Services are
designed for researchers and all other
actors
of
the
Research
and
Innovation ecosystem. We are here to
make sure they are practical, easy to
use and understand.
Accessibility and transparency:
Scientific outputs should be free to
access and use, and services must
use open protocols to avoid vendor
lock-in.
Collaboration and reciprocity: The
transition
towards
openness
in
Scholarly Communication requires
fresh ideas and shared solutions. We
won't thrive without recognising
others’ strengths, evolving together,
supporting each other and buidling
synergies at local, European and
global levels.
7
Using old practices and extending them to the new norms of digital and
data intensive science will not suffice. Out-of-the box design and involvement of
the research communitiy in all stages of implementation is the way forward.
OpenAIRE infrastructure and services are developed
by the community and for the community.
Any viable and sustainable implementation of Open Science requires the participation of many: researchers, content providers, service providers, policy makers. 8 OUR USERS AND PARTNERS Researchers: Individuals or research groups and communities. Content providers: repository man- agers, OA Journals, preprint servers, data archives and repositories, current research information systems (CRIS), software and other types of reposito- ries, research infrastructures (RIs), learned societies. Service providers: Providers of scholarly communication services (platform and tool developers, publishers) and providers of R&I evaluation services (primarily SMEs). Policy makers: funding agencies (policy officers), research administra- tors. OpenAIRE engages with a wide range of R&I actors, working with them to jointly assume an active role in the emerging open scholarly communication ecosystem, particularly by allowing them to develop and consume services, infrastructure, and policies in accordance with their specific needs.
9
Open Science in an emerging context: The Open Science landscape in Europe and
around the world has significantly evolved in the past five years with progress in key pivotal
areas areas. The following organisational efforts and underpinning policies and infrastructures
will further accelerate the developments in the next decade:
The research environment: With digital and data intensive science in the forefront, libraries
and researchers are shifting to prefer open, more collaborative solutions. Universities are in the
process of investing in open, community-based services, and on building the human support
infrastructure, but face the lack of solid business and operational models. On the other hand,
commercial actors increasingly play a more active role in the design and development of
Open Science services and products. But tensions still exist, as the traditional or emerging
business models fail to address the needs of the next generation researchers as these are
being formulated by practices of early collaboration, or research and career assessment meth-
ods that go beyond publications.
Horizon Europe1 embraces Open
Science as the modus operandi for
performing science.
European Open Science Cloud
(EOSC), a key European partnership,
sets out to implement a web of FAIR
data.
The new ERA Policy Agenda2
includes Action 1 - Enable Open
Science, including through the
EOSC, and Action 2 - Reform the
Assessment System for research,
researchers and institutions.
UNESCO Recommendation on
Open
Science3
formulates
principles and norms for a global
Open
Science
partnership
and
implementation.
2. THE ENVIRONMENT
10 OpenAIRE identifies five strategic priorities in Open Science. Infrastructure for Open Scholarly Communication Data and service quality assurance Responsible research & career assessment that includes Open Science Innovation in research communication & dissemination Monitoring of the uptake of Open Science policies 3. KEY STRATEGIC AREAS OF PRIORITY
11 INFRASTRUCTURE FOR OPEN SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION Scholarly infrastructures that serve researchers should be open by default and avoid any proprietary ownership that could prioritise profit before the principles of free access. To be efficient, Open Infrastructures should create, connect and sustain relevant and efficient ecosystems by ensuring (a) a strong community-led base, (b) interoperability and inclusivity in research supporting infrastructures and services, (c) high quality of provided services, (d) a seamless user experience, (e) seamless or zero transaction cost for the users of such services where possible (free at the point of use). The interoperability of infrastructures, and hence their ability to link up with each other and to ensure the smooth circula- tion of the content produced, is essential for open science to become mainstream. The fragmented infrastructure landscape leads to non-sustainable services and, frequently, to ad hoc or off-the-shelf solutions that do not necessarily meet the research community needs and expectations. CHALLENGES A fragmented landscape of diverse infrastructures where scholarly commu- nication is primarily provided and driven by commercial entities. Difficulty to align local-national-Europe- an and international levels. Fragile funding and lack of long-term support (sustainability) for Open Access infrastructure. PRIORITY 1
Promote interoperability to strengthen collaboration between open
research infrastructure providers.
Design open infrastructures based on what the stakeholders’
expectations and needs are regarding an open infrastructure (for
training, consulting, research, monitoring, discovery).
Explore and experiment with innovative Open Science business models.
Address the fragility of funding for open infrastructures by identifying and
seeking multiple and different forms of funding.
Consolidate existing infrastructure and services, and develop new
services, based on the added value provided by the aggregation and
processing (linking, cleaning, enriching, etc.) of distributed data sources.
Modernise current infrastructures (repositories and publishing platforms)
to meet researcher expectations.
OpenAIRE role: OpenAIRE products and services, such as the OpenAIRE
Guidelines for Content Providers and the OpenAIRE Research GRAPH,
are essential for achieving a loosely coupled interoperability framework and
hence for providing the backbone for sharing any type of openly and
trustable scholarly work.
INFRASTRUCTURE FOR OPEN SCHOLARL Y
COMMUNICATION
12
13
CHALLENGES
DATA AND SERVICE
QUALITY ASSURANCE
Data increasingly flows from system to
infrastructure
and
back.
Data,
open
infrastructures and services need a minimum
level of quality to be trustworthy. Services,
data and software must follow guidelines and
FAIR principles, as these are manifested by
practical quality assurance frameworks and
community-validated and maintained data.
Quality is often not formally described, but
implied or “hidden” in the background as a
mark of excellence, a result of compliance to
standards, effectiveness and performance.
Quality arrurance requires approaches and
best practices organised in (i) data quality
interoperability frameworks accompanied
by assessment tools and services, (ii) web
solutions that dictate the use of well-defined
ontologies or metadata schema and (iii)
guidelines,
checklists
and
repository
certification schemes4.
Quality assurance of Open Science
infrastructures is linked with Open Science
endorsement in institutions and countries.
Many of these infrastructures are still new,
mainly
grant
funded,
are
still
in
development stages and do not provide
proper content curation and user support,
e.g., due to a lack of resources.
Design failures on how data providers and
different R&I entities and workflows are
represented
in
the
Scholarly
Communication
ecosystem
result
in
duplications and workload overheads.
Consensus, acceptance and consistent
funding
of
semi-automated
quality
assurance processes in publishing venues
(OA journals, repositories/pre-prints).
PRIORITY 2