The promotion of Open Science

Towards a science of quality and greater impact

The European Commission has assumed that the transformation of the European economic model must have research and innovation at the base. European guidelines for research indicate that it must be open, enabling the circulation of FAIR knowledge (Findable, Accessible, Interpretable and Reusable). This new way of doing science is called Open Science. 

Open Science entails researchers to meet a series of requirements that were not common until now. That is why their compliance is sometimes seen as an added difficulty to their task, and therefore, facilitating this new duty should be the goal of a country’s research system. 

Open Science increases the quality and impact of research promoting its reproducibility and interdisciplinarity. It makes science more efficient because of the sharing of resources, more reliable thanks to a greater verification and rigor, and more sensitive to the citizens’ needs. 

Much more than the availability of publications and data in open access	It is the openness of the scientific process, reinforcing scientific social responsibility	It is the transfer of scientific knowledge to society

Increasing the visibility of research together

Our objective is to collaborate with universities and research centres in Catalonia to reduce the adaptation efforts to open science requirements and, at the same time, to increase the visibility of the research carried out in Catalonia. From CSUC, we are in charge of developing the agreements taken by the functional commission of Open Science, formed by vice-rectors of research. 

We provide the tools to make scientific outputs visible, open and with immediate access, intrinsic attributes of open science. An example of this commitment is the Portal de la Recerca de Catalunya (Research Portal of Catalonia, PRC), which collects all the information related to the research done in our territory. We also manage cooperative digital repositories that include theses, research documents, journals, teaching materials and Catalan heritage.

The Catalan strategy for Open Science

Catalonia has approved the Catalan Agreement on the Knowledge Society (PN@SC), a country pact for Catalonia to move towards the future and become a leader in innovation and a knowledge-based economy. The Agreement incorporates the objectives and measures for the implementation of a Catalan strategy for Open Science. 

In accordance with the recommendations of the European Commission and the roadmaps implemented in some countries such as Ireland, The Netherlands or France, the Catalan strategy for Open Science should be structured around the following axes: 

• Open access to scientific publications. Make the scientific production of the Catalan research system accessible to everyone in open access.  
• Research Data Management: towards FAIR data. To ensure that data are published, by default, as open as possible and in a FAIR manner (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable), ensuring their preservation and reuse, and developing good management practices.
• Infrastructures for Open Science. Improving existing infrastructures, such as CSUC, and creating new ones to integrate the resources of Catalonia's research system into the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) ecosystem. 
• Skills and competencies. To guarantee that anyone in the Catalan research system has training in the principles of Open Science. 
• Incentives and rewards. To have a system of incentives and rewards based not only on the publication of results, but also on the activities that are carried out throughout the research cycle and that are intended to promote the principles of Open Science. 
• Open knowledge and society. To encourage the participation of the society in research and innovation from the beginnig of R&D processes to harmonize their results with the values of society. To train the society to actively participate, competenly and responsibly, in research and innovation activities.