Open Science Observatory

Understanding the European open science landscape  

The Open Science Observatory (https://osobservatory.openaire.eu) is an OpenAIRE platform showcasing a collection of indicators and visualisations that help policy makers and research administrators better understand the Open Science landscape in Europe, across and within countries.  

The broader context: As the number of Open Science mandates have been increasing across countries and scientific fields, so has the need to track Open Science practices and uptake in a timely and granular manner. The Open Science Observatory assists the monitoring, and consequently the enhancing, of open science policy uptake across different dimensions of interest, revealing weak spots and hidden potential. Its release comes in a timely fashion, in order to support UNESCO's global initiative for Open Science and the European Open Science Cloud (the current development and enhancement is co-funded by the EOSC Future H2020 project and will appear in the EOSC Portal).  

Member States should, according to their specific conditions, governing structures and constitutional provisions, monitor policies and mechanisms related to open science using a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, as appropriate.

Unesco Recommendations on Open Science

How does it work: Based on the OpenAIRE Research Graph, following open science principles and an evidence-based approach, the Open Science Observatory provides simple metrics and more advanced composite indicators which cover various aspects of open science uptake such us

• different openness metrics
• FAIR principles
• Plan S compatibility & transformative agreements
• APCs

as well as measures related to the outcomes of Open Access research output as they relate to

• network & collaborations
• usage statistics and citations
• Sustainable Development Goals

across and within European countries. 

More to come: As OpenAIRE Graph is being enriched (e.g., Fields of Science, cleaner organisation entities, disambiguation on authors), we expect to have additional facets by different fields of interest. We will also enhance the service with exporting and data downloading capabilities to allow users to perform their own analysis and reporting and turning data into insights, and policy-making. Moreover, the Open Science Observatory will complement the narrative found in our Country Pages, which will soon undergo a major update, and the MONITOR Dashboards for funders and institutions. 

Working together: Monitoring of Open Science is not trivial. Good and qualitative data is crucial, as well as the use of transparent methodology, which may indicate assumptions and biases. OpenAIRE and our members are committed to working on this, bringing the collective community knowledge. This is true, as many members and others are setting up national monitoring platforms. The Working Group on Open Science Monitoring will be the vehicle to align the local infrastructure, indicators and their assessment, complementing our work in EOSC Future and with other initiatives around the world.

 We would really like to hear from you and work with you.