Open Science Policies – Vanguard of a Cultural Shift or Institutional Window Dressing?
Papilion, Florian; Weimer, Verena; Heck, Tamara; Scherp, Guido; Hoenig, Kerstin; Höffler, Tim
- Publisher
- Zenodo
- Language
- en
Abstract
Open Science (OS) has emerged as a normative ideal in research, yet the institutional uptake is highly uneven. Nosek [1] places policy at the top of his pyramid for achieving cultural change toward OS, characterizing it with the imperative to “make it required”. However, the impact of policies lies in the detail of the actual translation of OS practices. Developing institutional policies and determining concrete commitments and measures is a complex endeavour, framed by disciplinary contexts and their underlying practices. In the project IvOS, we raise the question: Do Open Science policies truly drive cultural transformation in research, or do they serve primarily symbolic functions under the guise of compliance? This study addresses this tension by empirically investigating the content and perceived impact of institutional OS policies within a highly interdisciplinary and heterogeneous research network. The database consists of OS policy documents (n = 79) of Leibniz Institutions. These are coded applying qualitative content analysis (results of a pre-study are available [2]). The analysis focus lies on the OS dimensions (Open Access, Open Data, OER, etc.) [3], the practices addressed and their binding character [4], the consideration of discipline-specific concepts and inclusion [5], the implementation into institutional strategies and good scientific practice [6] as well as the monitoring to measure the policy impact [7]. The results provide information on the function of OS policies, whether they have the potential to act as vanguard of a cultural shift and how well they translate the principles to concrete research practices. [1] Nosek, B. (2019). Strategy for Culture Change. Center for Open Science. URL: https://www.cos.io/blog/strategy-for-culture-change [2] Weimer, V., Heck, T., Scherp, G., Hoenig, K., & Höffler, T. (2024). Open Science Policy Documents of the Leibniz Institutions. Open Science Festival 2024, Mainz. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13862317 [3] Leibniz Association (2022). Leibniz Open Science Policy. URL: https://www.leibniz-gemeinschaft.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Bilder_und_Downloads/Forschung/Open_Science/Open_Science_Policy.pdf [4] SPARC. (2018). An Analysis of Open Data and Open Science Policies in Europe. https://sparceurope.org/download/3674 [5] Chtena, N., Alperin, J. P., Morales, E., Fleerackers, A., Dorsch, I., Pinfield, S., & Simard,M.-A. (2023). The neglect of equity and inclusion in open science policies of Europe and the Americas. In SciELO Preprints. https://doi.org/10.1590/SciELOPreprints.7366 [6] Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information, Kramer, B., Neylon, C., & Waltman, L. (2024). Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information (1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10958522 [7] European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Wouters, P., Ràfols, I., Oancea, A., Kamerlin, S. C. L. et al., Indicator frameworks for fostering open knowledge practices in science and scholarship, Publications Office of the European Union, 2019, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/445286
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Open Science Policies –Vanguard of a Cultural Shift or Institutional Window Dressing? Florian Papilion1, Verena Weimer1, Tamara Heck1, Guido Scherp2, Tim Höffler3, Kerstin Hoenig4 The project Impact of Open Science analyses the status of the establishment of Open Science in various specialist cultures of the Leibniz Association and derives statements on the effectiveness of the Leibniz Open Science mission statement to systematically support Open Science strategy development. Research Question: Which dimensions as well as action and support measures do Open Science policies include? Method: Thematic coding of policy documents and statements of Leibniz Institutes referring to any open science dimension. Action measures (AM) to be carried out by researchers Support measures (SM) to be carried out by institutes Open Access (AM = 22, SM = 22) OA first publication or second publication (40), raising third -party funding (36), securing and using the right of second publication (34), free licensing (33), OA publication in any form (29) Advice and support for employees (46), provision of funding (40), OA officer as contact person (33), provision of metadata for Leibniz Open (32), provision of institutional publications as OA (27) Open and FAIR Data (AM = 15, SM = 20) Adding persistent identifiers to research data (16), adding metadata to research data (15), ethically and legally secure publication of research data (14), creating and using a data management plan (13), complying with current subject -specific guidelines (12) Advice and support for employees (20), provision of infrastructure (20), participation in OFD initiatives (16), provision of repository (13), storage of data for at least 10 years (12) Open Research Software (AM = 6, SM = 7) Provision of research software or individual components (11), free licensing of ORS or components (5), ensure open source when using external software (3), use of non -proprietary solutions in the development of new software (2) Preferred use of open source software (4), further training of employees (2), publish research software in repositories (2) Open Infrastructure (AM = 3, SM = 6) Use of open infrastructures (1), support for the further development (1), employee participation (1) Support for the further development of OI (2) Open Methodology (AM = 9, SM = 8) Pre -registration of planned studies (5), complete and comprehensible documentation of all research processes (4), publication of research materials (2) Further training of employees (2), provision of methodological data via a repository (2) Open Educational Resources (AM = 6, SM = 6) Free licensing of educational materials (4), publication of educational materials in non - proprietary formats (2), adding metadata to educational materials (2), publication of educational materials in repositories (2) Advising employees (5), continuing education opportunities (2), participation in OER initiatives (2), provision of infrastructure (2) Other dimensions are Citizen Science (5), Open Evaluation (1), Open Hardware (1), Open Peer Review (1), Open Event (1), Open Dialogue/engagement (1) Open Science Conference | 8.-9. October 2025 | Hamburg Open Science Conference | 8.-9. October 2025 | Hamburg The Leibniz Strategy Forum on Open Science is tasked with supporting the Leibniz Association and its institutions in their strategic developments in the field of Open Science. Distribution of OS dimensions according to discipline-specific Leibniz sections (documents aggregated per Institute) 1DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, 2ZBW –Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, 3IPN –Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, 4German Institute for Adult Education –Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning Data: 62 (64,58 %) of 96 Leibniz Institutes published a total of 79 OS-related documents or statements on websites. 13 Institutes have two or three documents relating to different OS dimensions. Humanities and Educational Research 20 of 23 Institutes (87 %) Economics, Social Sciences, Spatial Research 16 of 18 Institutes (89 %) Life Sciences 11 of 24 Institutes (46 %) Mathematics, Natural Sciences, Engineering 10 of 23 Institutes (43 %) Environmental Sciences 5 of 8 Institutes (63 %) 19 15 5 2 5 5 0 4 8 12 16 20 OA OFD ORS OI OM OER 15 14 2 0 21 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 OA OFD ORS OI OM OER 5 9 0 0 0 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 OA OFD ORS OI OM OER 9 6 4 1 1 1 0 2 4 6 8 10 OA OFD ORS OI OM OER 3 4 1 0 0 0 0 2 4 6 OA OFD ORS OI OM OER Ein Bild, das Muster, Grafiken, Pixel, Design enthält. KI-generierte Inhalte können fehlerhaft sein. Ein Bild, das Symbol, Screenshot, Kreis enthält. KI-generierte Inhalte können fehlerhaft sein. Action and support measures mostly mentioned in the 79 documents (numbers relate to measures and documents mentioning those; top-5 measures and >1 documents, except for OI) References: Leibniz Open Science Policy (2022). https://www.leibniz-gemeinschaft.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Bilder_und_Downloads/Forschung/Open_Science/Open_Science_Policy.pdf; Weimer, V., Heck, T., Scherp, G., Hoenig, K., & Höffler, T. (2024). Open Science Policy Documents of the Leibniz Institutions. Open Science Festival 2024, Mainz. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13862317 Monitoring: Monitoring mentioned in 23 documents, with statements on concrete time span (n = 8) and responsible person or group (n = 6), less with concrete success indicators (OA publication development and costs: n = 2). Strategy: OS is part of good scientific practice (n = 20), maxim of action (n = 8), guiding principle (n = 2), following “as open as possible and as closed as necessary” (n = 6) 10.5281/zenodo.17252819 10.5281/zenodo.17252819Project funded by the Leibniz Association.
