Institutional promotion of open-access publications in scientific output

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  2. Institutional promotion of open-access publications in scientific output

The ambition of the second national open science plan states that “promoting open science and the diversity of scientific output in assessing researchers, research projects, and research establishments” is of key importance for “making open science the default practice”.

As a corollary of incentives relating to visibility, cooperation, and reusing research, funding bodies for calls for proposals (the EU, ANR, etc.) make increasing demands about opening publication and data.

Depositing publications and sharing data and research output is initially time-consuming, but it is of interest for both readers and researchers (ensuring it is permanently available, and making it easy to carry out certain fastidious tasks such as producing bibliographies and updating CVs).

Above and beyond this individual benefit, the possibility of creating dedicated collections in an open archive enhances visibility for :

  • Research units

  • Institutions

  • Projects and conferences

It is especially crucial in the human and social sciences, disciplines in which quantitative metrics tools largely fail to take into account multilingualism and diversity of output (articles, books, conference proceedings, and so on).

Each establishment draws up its institutional policy for depositing full texts and data, as part of the National Open Science Plan, for instance the Université Rennes 2 open science charter and the CNRS open science roadmap.

Furthermore, there is increasing awareness of the still unequal recognition of open science practices in assessing or recruiting researchers, both at the national level (CNU, HCERES) and at that of institutions. This has prompted considerations—such as the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), or that by the COSO Evaluation group— about improving the quality of assessment and making it more alert to biblodiversity and open science.

In February 2022, the Paris Open Science European Conference (OSEC 2022) saw the launch of the Paris Call. Recognising that openness improves the quality, effectiveness, and impact of research, this advocates creating a research assessment system based on the merits and impacts of work rather than their number or publishing media. It also calls for valuing diverse research activities (preprints, data, software, codes, and so on) and recompensing good practice, such as sharing results and methodologies.