PIJIP Director Michael Carroll served on an ad hoc committee under the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Research Data and Information, which has completed a study on the challenges of broadening access to the results of scientific research, described as “open science.” The study, Open Science by Design: Realizing a Vision for 21st Century Research, will be formally released on Tuesday, July 17.

Open science is defined, for the purposes of this study, as public access (i.e., no charge for access beyond the cost of an internet connection) to scholarly articles resulting from research projects, the data that support the results contained in those articles, computer code, algorithms, and other digital products of publicly funded scientific research, so that the products of this research are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), with limited exceptions for privacy, proprietary business claims, and national security. The study focuses on how to move toward open science as the default for scientific research results, and includes the following tasks:

  1. Provides a cursory overview of the extent to which scientific and engineering disciplines currently practice open science;
  2. Identifies the barriers to and facilitators of open science, such as cultural norms, incentives, service provider business models, policies, available infrastructure, education/training, and formal and informal data management processes, and illustrate these barriers and facilitators in at least four scientific disciplines from the biological sciences, social sciences, physical sciences, and earth sciences;
  3. Describes how policies and practices of participants in the research enterprise, such as funders, publishers, journal editors, research institutions, scientific societies, researchers, service providers, and the private sector, are affecting open science;
  4. Recommends specific solutions in policy, infrastructure, incentives and requirements that would facilitate open science;
  5. Identifies existing implementations of these solutions occurring in individual disciplines that could be extended to other disciplines (e.g., preprints), and demonstrations of proofs-of-concept that need to be brought to scale (e.g., preregistration for basic and preclinical research);
  6. For potential solutions with no existing demonstrations, identifies practical implementation steps, policies, and appropriate stakeholder roles to develop solutions;
  7. Provides specific policy and practice options for Federal science agencies to move toward open science as the default for the research they support.

Open Science by Design presents findings and recommendations that address these issues, with the majority of the focus on solutions that move the research enterprise toward open science.

For more information on the event, or to register to attend: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/report-release-open-science-by-design-registration-47551142748