Towards an inclusive Open Science: examining EDI and public participation in policy documents across Europe and the Americas
National, international and organizational Open Science (OS) policies are being formulated to improve and accelerate research through increased transparency, collaboration and better access to scientific knowledge. Yet, there is mounting concern that OS policies do not effectively capture the ethos...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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The Royal Society
2025-04-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
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| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240857 |
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| author | Natascha Chtena Juan Pablo Alperin Esteban Morales Alice Fleerackers Isabelle Dorsch Stephen Pinfield Marc-André Simard |
| author_facet | Natascha Chtena Juan Pablo Alperin Esteban Morales Alice Fleerackers Isabelle Dorsch Stephen Pinfield Marc-André Simard |
| author_sort | Natascha Chtena |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | National, international and organizational Open Science (OS) policies are being formulated to improve and accelerate research through increased transparency, collaboration and better access to scientific knowledge. Yet, there is mounting concern that OS policies do not effectively capture the ethos of OS, and particularly its goal of making science more collaborative, inclusive and socially engaged. This study explores how OS is conceptualized in emerging OS policies and to what extent notions of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), as well as public participation are reflected in policy guidelines and recommendations. We use a qualitative document research approach to critically analyse 52 OS policy documents published between January 2020 and December 2022 in Europe and the Americas. Our results show that OS policies overwhelmingly focus on making research outputs publicly accessible, neglecting to advance the two aspects of OS that hold the key to achieving an equitable and inclusive scientific culture—namely, EDI and public participation. While these concepts are often mentioned and even embraced in OS policy documents, concrete guidance on how they can be promoted in practice is overwhelmingly lacking. Rather than advancing the openness of scientific findings first and promoting EDI and public participation efforts second, we argue that incentives and guidelines must be provided and implemented concurrently to advance the OS movement’s stated goal of making science open to all. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-66a7d04ba6c6472a96edfd28014bff31 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-04-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-66a7d04ba6c6472a96edfd28014bff312025-08-20T02:56:37ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032025-04-0112410.1098/rsos.240857Towards an inclusive Open Science: examining EDI and public participation in policy documents across Europe and the AmericasNatascha Chtena0Juan Pablo Alperin1Esteban Morales2Alice Fleerackers3Isabelle Dorsch4Stephen Pinfield5Marc-André Simard6School of Publishing, Simon Fraser University , Vancouver, British Columbia, CanadaSchool of Publishing, Simon Fraser University , Vancouver, British Columbia, CanadaResearch Centre for Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen , Groningen, The NetherlandsDepartment of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam, The NetherlandsZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics , Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, GermanyResearch on Research Institute (RoRI) , London, UKÉcole de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information, Université de Montréal , Montreal, Quebec, CanadaNational, international and organizational Open Science (OS) policies are being formulated to improve and accelerate research through increased transparency, collaboration and better access to scientific knowledge. Yet, there is mounting concern that OS policies do not effectively capture the ethos of OS, and particularly its goal of making science more collaborative, inclusive and socially engaged. This study explores how OS is conceptualized in emerging OS policies and to what extent notions of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), as well as public participation are reflected in policy guidelines and recommendations. We use a qualitative document research approach to critically analyse 52 OS policy documents published between January 2020 and December 2022 in Europe and the Americas. Our results show that OS policies overwhelmingly focus on making research outputs publicly accessible, neglecting to advance the two aspects of OS that hold the key to achieving an equitable and inclusive scientific culture—namely, EDI and public participation. While these concepts are often mentioned and even embraced in OS policy documents, concrete guidance on how they can be promoted in practice is overwhelmingly lacking. Rather than advancing the openness of scientific findings first and promoting EDI and public participation efforts second, we argue that incentives and guidelines must be provided and implemented concurrently to advance the OS movement’s stated goal of making science open to all.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240857Open Sciencescience policyEDIpublic participation |
| spellingShingle | Natascha Chtena Juan Pablo Alperin Esteban Morales Alice Fleerackers Isabelle Dorsch Stephen Pinfield Marc-André Simard Towards an inclusive Open Science: examining EDI and public participation in policy documents across Europe and the Americas Royal Society Open Science Open Science science policy EDI public participation |
| title | Towards an inclusive Open Science: examining EDI and public participation in policy documents across Europe and the Americas |
| title_full | Towards an inclusive Open Science: examining EDI and public participation in policy documents across Europe and the Americas |
| title_fullStr | Towards an inclusive Open Science: examining EDI and public participation in policy documents across Europe and the Americas |
| title_full_unstemmed | Towards an inclusive Open Science: examining EDI and public participation in policy documents across Europe and the Americas |
| title_short | Towards an inclusive Open Science: examining EDI and public participation in policy documents across Europe and the Americas |
| title_sort | towards an inclusive open science examining edi and public participation in policy documents across europe and the americas |
| topic | Open Science science policy EDI public participation |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240857 |
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