Accessible research through open science

Open science means that several parts of the research process are open and available for everyone to take part in and reuse. It consists of several sub-areas that together contribute to making research and science-based knowledge more open.

Areas of open science include:

• Open access to scientific publications, which means that these publications must be accessible and reusable for all.
• Open access to research data, which means that the material on which scientific results are based must be accessible and reusable for everyone.
• Open research methods, which means that the entire workflow of research is described and made accessible.
• Open Educational Resources, which means that educational and teaching materials are freely shared and reused.
• Public participation in the research process, which means that the public is directly involved in research projects or different parts of the research process
• Infrastructures that support open science, which means systems and services that are used to make research results, research data and open educational resources available, among other things.

At the library at University West, the work is focused on the parts of open access and research data.

Scientific research more accessible and useful with FAIR

The FAIR principles ensure that research data is searchable, accessible, interoperable and reusable, which is important for other researchers to understand, review and reuse it.

Read more about FAIR at the Swedish Research Council and Go FAIR.

Open science internationally

Open science is developed in an international context. UNESCO's 2021 Recommendation for Open Science serves as a framework of principles and approaches for creating globally equal access to scientific results and research processes. The goal is to accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals1.

In connection with the work with open science, many universities and colleges have joined the initiatives on research assessment; The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) and The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). These aim to jointly improve the assessment of the quality of research and seek to address overly simplistic and misleading quantitative assessments.

In Europe, the EU, through the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), wants to create a common, open environment for FAIR and open research data. The EOSC integrates existing solutions and infrastructures in the Member States for open science.

Open science in Sweden

The Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) has designed a national roadmap for open science , which will be adopted in 2021. The goal is for Sweden to have an open science system by 2026.

The research bill "Forskning, frihet, framtid - kunskap och innovation för Sverige" (Research, freedom, future – knowledge and innovation for Sweden) from 2020 states that open science increases access to publications and data, which increases efficiency and facilitates knowledge transfer. The bill emphasises the responsibility of higher education institutions and research funders to create incentives for open science and emphasises the important role of research libraries. This is also maintained by the government's new research bill from 2024.

The National Library of Sweden has developed national guidelines for open science (2024), which will support and guide universities, university colleges and research funders. The aim is to improve coordination between actors responsible for the transition to open science in Sweden.