What is Open Science?
Open science encompasses a range of approaches to making scientific findings, practices and perspectives more accessible, as well as the processes through which they are created, evaluated, explored and preserved.
Open science (sometimes referred to as open research) is grounded in a set of principles relating to transparency, accessibility and collaboration in research. It is an umbrella term for research practices that have emerged and developed over the past half-century, alongside digitalisation, new forms of knowledge sharing, and a growing debate about how research can be made more accessible and useful. Since the early 2000s, this development has become more visible and more clearly defined through international, national, and local initiatives promoting open access to publications and research data, as well as greater openness in research processes.
Three main features
In simple terms, open science can be described through three main features, all intended to strengthen the quality of research and its benefit to society.
- Scientific knowledge that is accessible and reusable for everyone.
- Greater scientific collaboration and exchange of research information.
- Open processes for creating, evaluating, and communicating scientific findings.
Open science encompasses all fields of research and academic disciplines. However, open practices may take different forms depending on the methods, needs, and traditions of each field; open practices in the humanities, for example, may differ from those in the natural sciences. Important shared principles include transparency, sharing, collaboration, and reusability, while openness must also be balanced against considerations such as ethics, privacy, security, and copyright.
Towards an open research system
In Sweden, work towards an open science system covers a number of priority areas: open access to scientific publications and research data, open research methods, open educational resources, public participation in the research process, and infrastructures that support open science. Publications and research data have long been at the centre of this work, but developments now concern more aspects of the conditions and practices of research.
The work is shaped by both international and national organisations and bodies. UNESCO is an important global actor, while the EU plays a central role at the European level. Key Swedish actors include the National Library of Sweden, the Swedish Research Council, SUHF — the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions — research funders, and higher education institutions. University libraries have often taken on central roles in developing guidelines, infrastructure, support services, and useful practices.