Kategorie: Open4DE

Um Vorschläge für die Roadmap und die Inhalte einer Open-Access-Strategie für Deutschland zu erarbeiten, führen wir im Projekt „Open4DE: Stand und Perspektiven einer Open-Access-Strategie für Deutschland“ eine Serie von Stakeholder-Workshops, und Interviews durch.

Open4DE Spotlight on the Open Access Ecosystem in Switzerland

Authors: Malte Dreyer, Martina Benz, Maike Neufend and Theresa Bärwolff

Open Access is developing in an area of tension between institutional and funder policies, the economics of publishing and last but not least the communication practices of research disciplines. In a comparison across European countries, very dynamic and diverse approaches and developments can be observed. Furthermore, this international and comparative perspective helps us to assess the state of open access and open science in Germany. In this series of Open4DE project blog posts, we will summarize what we have learned in our in-depth conversations with experts on developing and implementing nationwide Open Access strategies.

After we focused on our neighboring country Austria in our last article, we now turn our attention to another DACH neighbor in the Alpine region: Switzerland. Open Access in Switzerland is a complex field. On the one hand, Switzerland impresses with measures, such as generously funding rates from monograph funds. There exist multiple exemplary pilot projects in the field of Open Access and Open Science, as several presentations by our Swiss colleagues at the recent Open Access Days in Bern showed. On the other hand, however, there are numerous unresolved topics, such as the missed revision of the copyright law or the failure to achieve the ambitious policy goal of 100% Open Access by 2024 for publicly funded research. However, Open Access in Switzerland comprises multiple facets, and a look at the historical development of Open Access in Switzerland makes it particularly clear how they belong together. That is why we have taken a closer look and, in addition to the current situation, also included its historical development more intensively in our investigation than we have done in other blog posts.

We were able to get Prof. Dr. Ingrid Kissling-Näf, who will contribute to the first part of this article, to answer our questions about the history of Open Access policy-making in Switzerland. André Hoffmann, who we will introduce in the second part of this article, was available to answer questions about current problems and challenges.

Our expert on Open Access policy-making in the 10s.

To learn more about the winding road to Swiss Open Access-policy, we meet Prof. Dr. Ingrid Kissling-Näf, political scientist and economist. After an assistant professorship at the ETH Zürich, she led the Humanities and Social Sciences Division at the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), probably the most important research funder in Switzerland, from 2013-2017. The Open Access-funding policy at the SNSF was completely transformed during this period, and Prof. Dr. Ingrid Kissling-Näf played a leading role in this policy process. For the last 5 years, she has led the Business School at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, where she continues to be engaged in Open Access, for example by motivating staff to publish Open Access and engage in Open Science research projects. Her involvement in shaping the Swiss Open Access ecosystem makes her an ideal contact for us, especially for questions related to the design of the publication system in the 10s.

The beginnings of nationwide Open Access in Switzerland

The development began at the latest in 2003, when numerous important scientific actors in Switzerland, including the SNSF, the Rectors‘ Conference of the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences and Universities, and the Swiss Academy of Sciences, signed the Berlin Declaration. Five years later, in 2008, the SNSF committed funded scientists to self-archive their publications. „However, compliance with this commitment was insufficiently monitored“ admits Ingrid Kissling-Näf. Then, in 2013, the Open Access policy became more concrete: the SNSF adopted guidelines that required research results from funded projects to be published without embargo – a clear gold Open Access-policy. Ingrid Kissling-Näf remembers the shift of attention that occurred at that time:

The National Fund (NF) was still very traditional, the whole book promotion was classically oriented on the distribution of physical copies. But then it was realized that we had to move with the times. Personal factors were deciding: the president at the time pushed Open Access. Pioneers were also the natural sciences, which had already developed Open Access further and were more familiar with the idea of openness.

As in many other Open Access-ecosystems, for example in Sweden, it were individuals, Open Access enthusiasts, who played a significant role in starting the policy processes. And in Switzerland, too, these advocates of an open publication culture quickly reached their limits:

Barriers and resistance to policies for an open publication culture

In the following years, discussions were first held within the National Research Council (Humanities and Social Sciences), the governance body for application evaluations and funding decisions in humanities and social sciences of the SNSF, which only adopted the development of a digitization strategy after long discussions, Ingrid Kissling-Näf tells us. This practice illustrates in line with current developments in Germany that the policy cycle in reality begins with the distribution of responsibilities. The decision to place the policy process in the hands of an organizational unit closely linked to the scientific community (via the National Research Council) was extremely wise in this phase. After all, significant doubts about Open Access were expressed in the scientific community:

One frequently presented argument against Open Access was that it was not compatible with traditional career paths. In many scientific disciplines, career paths were still very traditional. The doctorate was followed by a few peer-reviewed articles in closed-access in high-ranked journals, and then the professorship followed. There was no room for Open Access.

So something had to be done. To cover APCs, the SNSF set up a fund that granted up to 3000 sfr per published article. The Open Access policy was to be extended to monographs in 2014. These were supposed to be freely accessible after 24 months, for example via an Open Access publication on a repository. In principle, funding was only to be available for monographs that were available in a digital version. This guideline in particular caused concern among publishers. They feared negative effects on their book sales and protested loudly.

The publishers said that the cultural good of the book was being attacked by our Open Access strategy, that a tradition was being threatened. We then had discussions with publishing houses in Switzerland and especially with the legal sciences, where lucrative commentaries on laws are written. Our argument for Open Access was that these commentaries are publicly funded, therefore they should be publicly visible.

Policy processes are only linear in theory: however, because of the headwinds from publishers, the policy measures mentioned above had to be discussed again. The benefit of this confrontation was the understanding of the necessity of a dialogue with the most important interest groups. Thus, regular talks with the publishers were now also scheduled.

Winning over doubters, distributing responsibilities: A policy process is forming

First of all, it was agreed to analyse the impact of Open Access on traditional publishing structures. To this end, the SNSF launched a pilot project in 2014 based on the Dutch and British model, in particular to satisfy the publishers: In the OAPEN-CH project, a research team with German and Swiss publishers in the humanities and social sciences investigated what effects the publication of books in Open Access would have. The results confirmed the findings from England and the Netherlands that an edition that is freely available digitally on the internet increases visibility, findability and usability. Open Access has no negative impact on the sale of the printed book. In addition, a financial flow analysis was to be done to find out what sums were flowing into the publication system in Switzerland at the time. Here, too, a particular challenge was to name responsible parties:

The National Science Foundation criticised that it should do the financial study because it did not see any responsibility in monitoring the development of Open Access and translating results into policy measures. Therefore, we then went to Swissuniversities [the rectorate conference of the Swiss universities] and won them for the project.

In addition, other actors were won over for the project of an overarching Open Access strategy. According to Ingrid Kissling-Näf, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation was persuaded in numerous talks to commit to the project. A welcome side effect was that from then on it could count itself as one of the drivers of Open Access. In 2015, the State Secretariat finally mandated the development of a national Open Access strategy.

During this time, a working group of swissuniversites together with SNSF was in close contact with the State Secretariat. We had regular discussions about which priorities we wanted to set. Maybe that was a format with similarities to the Alliance Initiative in Germany.

The circle of participants had grown significantly as a result. In addition to political representation, the Rector’s Conference now also involved the academic and higher education policy levels. The parallel to the Alliance Initiative in Germany that Ingrid Kissling-Näf draws here is also exciting with regard to the search for actors who could lead a nationwide policy process in Germany. In Switzerland, the attempt to place the policy process in the hands of a group consisting of political actors, research funders and universities was successful. This was achieved mainly through numerous informal contact initiations.

Adoption and implementation of the nationwide policy

In 2017/18, after forceful engagement, a first nationwide binding paper was adopted in the plenary assembly of swissuniversities. The objective of this policy was, among other things, to achieve 100% Open Access for all publicly funded research by 2024, while maintaining the autonomy of the universities. Measures to change the publication landscape were concretised in an action plan, which included the pooling of resources, the support of alternative publication formats and a reform of research evaluation. The SNSF was to play a pioneering role in the implementation of Open Access-policies in association with the universities. As in Germany, research funding bodies in Switzerland had a key function: „The SNSF’s guidelines were still decisive, because every university wants to receive the SNSF’s money and therefore has to accept its conditions. The SNSF’s conditions carry science policy.”

The process that Ingrid Kissling-Näf describes to us here has similarities in many respects to the challenges that Open4DE identifies in Germany with regard to the possible paths to a nationwide Open Access-strategy. For example, the beginning was characterised by efforts to pick up doubters and motivate relevant actors to take responsibility: Activities that we have to address if we want to succeed with a nationwide strategy process in Germany as well. 

Critical perspectives on the Swiss Open Access Policy of 2017

Despite all the successes in formulating the policy, Ingrid Kissling-Näf also still sees a need for regulation. She too recognises the steadily increasing APCs as a crucial problem. The question of whether science-led publishing, for example through the publication of journals by universities, is a solution here, is hard to answer:

As yet, the National Fund does not or cannot finance this. That can be seen as a problem. And when universities act as publishers, quality assurance measures such as peer review must be guaranteed.

We would like to look more closely at the current challenges in Switzerland and ask André Hoffmann about this. André Hoffmann studied sociology and politics in Konstanz. Following his studies, he worked in the social science archive on the founding documents of the German Sociological Association. Already during this work, he noticed how beneficial Open Access to research data can be for producing results. After the opportunity to work in the field of Open Access, André Hoffmann arrived at the library of the University of Zurich after various stations and works there on the implementation of Open Access guidelines, is responsible for the Open Access Repository and informs students about the advantages of Open Access. André Hoffmann is also co-president of the AKOA (Arbeitskreis Open Access) – a committee of Swiss research libraries. His view on the Open Access landscape in Switzerland is very differentiated: In addition to the progress made in recent decades, he also sees the mistakes that have been made and names numerous challenges for the future. „The development of OA in Switzerland has not always been straightforward. Phases of progress alternated with phases in which developments stagnated“ André Hoffmann tells us right at the beginning of our conversation, confirming our impressions from the meeting with Ms. Kissling-Näf. Looking at the period up to 2016, he adds: „Especially the route on the green path generated strong binding forces“.

According to his observation, the publication of the strategy in 2017 was also in response to international developments. There, it became apparent that many funds flew into the Read and Publish Contracts that had been concluded between state institutions and large publishers. However, according to André Hoffmann, the strategy in Switzerland also focuses on these contracts. But the fact that many goals of this policy have not been achieved is, according to Hoffmann, because implementation is not centrally coordinated, but left to individual stakeholders.

Funding programs

Funding programs are also important. Swissuniversites has set up such a funding program, with which it was possible to launch an OJS at the University of Zurich, among others. Projects in this program must be 50% funded by the applying institution, usually a cantonal university, with the other half funded by the federal government.

But such a form of equal funding can lead to questions of responsibility: „On the one hand, Swissuniversities is pushing for implementation, on the other hand, the universities are doing their own thing,“ André Hoffmann describes the situation. Another consequence of involving individual institutions is that the services and products often only benefit the members of the funding institutions. According to André Hoffmann, it is also not possible to purchase project-products because of legal reasons. Finally, he has doubts on project-based financing because of the funding strategy of Swissuniversities: „The major funding lines dominate, but often smaller projects outside of these funding lines are not financed,“ he points out. In addition, there are often no financing concepts for the follow-up use of the project results after the end of the funding period: services and products that were once developed with commitment can’t be continued. This is a problem that we also know from Germany.

Particularism in strategy processes

“Single institutions such as ETH Zurich could be a driving force, but ETH is holding back, perhaps because of the many contracts with smaller publishers,” he suspects. In addition, the commitment of an institution always depends on the position of the management.

Particularism in strategy processes seems to be a widespread problem, according to Hoffmann. He mentions the different types of institutions as another example for this problem. “The universities of applied sciences, for example, have maintained repositories for years, but the small universities have not, which results in differences in publication monitoring.” Because of this and similar inconsistencies, consultations about strategies often end up in discussions about particular interests. According to Hoffmann, good moderation would be needed to mediate the different levels and interests. But various small discussions between libraries, researchers, divided into the numerous disciplines, and the universities, among others, affect everyday life: „communication across disciplinary and institutional boundaries often proved difficult,“ André Hoffmann summarises his impression. Moderation by a major player would help here.

Copyright law, publishers and book funding

Another obstacle is the lack of reform of the Act on Copyright and Related Rights (UHG). Its reform has already been discussed in the Swiss parliament, but no vote was taken.“This could have failed due to the lobby of the Swiss small publishers, who were not included in the Read and Publish agreements and ran parallel to the Open Access process for a long time, which then turned out to be a problem“ suspects André Hoffmann.  

The generous funding for book publications, which can be up to 35,000 Swiss francs, is only rarely taken up because the requirements associated with it are difficult to realise.

ScholarLed-Scene

Alternatives to the traditional publishing landscape are offered by the growing Open Access publishing scene in Switzerland. In André Hoffmann’s opinion, however, the SNSF is very hesitant in funding this sector. Although the funding of alternative publication formats is mentioned in the national strategy, this funding activity has practically stagnated. However, this is also because the editors hesitate to accept this funding line. „Probably also because of a lack of sustainability. Even the hosting of independent journals is often connected to jobs that are time-limited.“ At this point, André Hoffmann sees potential for savings in the Read an Publish contracts: „Freed-up funds could then flow into funding programs that support such publication and infrastructure projects,“ he suggests.

Such cross-financing of science-driven publishing is being discussed in Germany. And approaches in this direction also exist in Switzerland. In the PLATO project, for example, members of the Diamond Scene are being asked about the conditions that must be met for long-term activities. The aim is to get an overview of the needs in order to support the scene.

Europe, a driving force

Impulses for the progress of the transformation also come from the European context. For example, the University of Zurich is a member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), an association with strict admission criteria, as André Hoffmann reports. „In this association, there is a separate working group on Open Science and guidelines are discussed to achieve a cultural change at the universities. This association is putting pressure for Open Access to be realised.“

Another European driver is the cOAlition S, which is also in contact with LERU. „Impulses from the European side have also led to the nomination of Open Science officers at the institutions.“ Since then, Zurich has also had an Open Science office, a Centre for Reproducible Science and a Citizen Science project centre. „Wild ideas were sometimes discussed in this environment,“ André Hoffmann informs us. „For example, the idea of uploading a version of records or publisher-PDFs to the repos so that legal certainty can be brought about in court proceedings.“ Presumably we all, not only our colleagues in Switzerland, need the courage now to discuss such „wild ideas“ again.

On the situation:

André Hoffmann is convinced that some progress will be achieved by 2024, but is sceptical about the ambitious 100% target. As can be seen in Germany, even a consortial large-scale contract like DEAL is not sufficient to come close to this mark. Hoffmann sees an additional strategic weakness in Switzerland in the rather soft structure of the second publication right. Other measures are being taken to remedy this. The SNSF already requires all authors to negotiate with publishers on how a second publication can be made possible. 

Cooperative projects have a very difficult time due to the federal structure in Switzerland, André Hoffmann summarises his impressions. „Cantonal universities have to spend a long time agreeing on joint financing structures.“ He cites Switzerland’s failure to establish an ORCID consortium as an example (renewed negotiations in 2022 have meanwhile once again failed). In Switzerland, single universities would first have to finance the jobs on their own and then bill other participating institutions in a time-consuming procedure for compensation. This is probably the reason for the „tendency to isolate oneself and cultivate one’s own little garden“. In general, cooperation projects are difficult but necessary.

What can we learn from Switzerland?

In conclusion, if we take stock of the two conversations we had, we notice numerous parallels to the German situation:

Federalism: challenge for policy processes and central infrastructures: In terms of funding structure, German federalism creates similar problems to those in Switzerland. Here, too, major federal funding lines decide on the direction of the transformation, as for example in the 2021 BMBF’s funding program for the transformation to Open Access.

And here, too, the question arises how to sustainably finance infrastructures after the funding ends. Cross-state funding of central publication services is also difficult in Germany due to the federal structure. The example of Switzerland thus shows well that sufficient capitalisation of the publication sector does not solve the problems as long as the federal structure does not allow for the implementation of a nationwide and sustainable strategy towards Open Access. That federal structures can be complex in the design of policy processes through including numerous stakeholders ranging from politicians via funding representatives up to university rectors was made clear to us by Ms Kissling-Näf in her description of the creation of the 2017 policy. This period seemed to be particularly characterised by the distribution of responsibilities to the relevant actors. This is a problem that we are also currently facing in the Open4DE project.

Libraries stay among themselves: Other similarities are noticeable: in fact, libraries in Switzerland are also active in shaping the transformation. However, they not only set the conditions for funding programs, but are also the first to apply for their own programs. Thus, libraries as infrastructure providers mostly remain among themselves. More intensive involvement of researchers would be necessary here as well as there. „Discussion about Open Access and Open Science with researchers only takes place in the committees. But the researchers working there have often been more involved in administration for years,“ Hoffmann remarks on this. From the perspective of historical hindsight, too, much could have been done better here: Ms Kissling-Näf admits that there were consultations between 2014 and 2016, one „went around and presented everything. The research councils were also consulted and proposals were developed with them“. But „the people“ were not consulted.

There was no discourse across the board. There was no discussion with the research itself, only with the councils and the publishing houses. If you did that today, you would do it differently. But the disciplines are very different and that should be taken into account.

Ingrid Kissling-Näf’s comment shows once again that well-resourced universities and funding lines cannot replace efforts to get in touch with researchers and to find suitable forums and formats that bring about a change in the publication culture.

Future prospects: The function of libraries as research service providers is different today than it was then. At present, they offer a much greater number of services related to technical infrastructures. It would certainly be to the advantage of the transformation if libraries in both Germany and Switzerland were not only experts in technical publication infrastructures, but could also provide social and political transformation infrastructures. For example, by bringing together different stakeholders. This also includes planning for future change processes: In this regard, Ingrid Kissling-Näf points out that we should design policies in such a way that they can be easily expanded, supplemented or changed: change should already be taken into account as a constant factor in policy formulation.

Literature

Open-Access-Transformation zwischen „Durchbruch“ und „moving target“

Bericht vom Open4DE-Stakeholder-Workshop mit den Wissenschaftsorganisationen

Das Projekt Open4DE: Stand und Perspektiven einer Open-Access-Strategie für Deutschland erhebt auf der Grundlage einer qualitativen Auswertung von Policy-Dokumenten den Umsetzungsstand von Open Access in Deutschland. Im zweiten Schritt entwickelt Open4DE im Dialog mit den wichtigsten Stakeholdern von Open Access in Deutschland Empfehlungen für eine bundesweite Open Access-Strategie. Dazu hatte das Projekt Workshops mit dem Scholarled-Network, Vertreter*innen von Fachgesellschaften sowie mit dem Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) und den Bundesländern organisiert.

Die Online-Veranstaltung am 7. September war der vierte und letzte Stakeholder-Workshop des Projektes Open4DE. Eingeladen waren Vertreter*innen der wichtigsten Wissenschaftsorganisationen in Deutschland: die zentralen Forschungsorganisationen – Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, Leibniz-Gemeinschaft, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG), Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK) und das Forum 13+ sowie die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) und der Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD). Außerdem waren Vertreter*innen des BMBF, der Gemeinsamen Wissenschaftskonferenz (GWK) und des Wissenschaftsrates anwesend.

Die großen Forschungsorganisationen waren von Anfang an zentrale Akteure und Treiber der Open-Access-Bewegung in Deutschland. Es war die Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, die 2003 die Berliner Konferenz organisierte, auf der die Berliner Erklärung über den offenen Zugang zu wissenschaftlichem Wissen verabschiedet wurde; die deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen zählten zu den Erstunterzeichnenden.

Alle großen Wissenschaftsorganisationen haben bereits früh eigene Ziele für den organisationsinternen Umgang mit Open Access verabschiedet (vgl. Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft 2015, Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft 2016 mit Erweiterung zur Open Science Policy 2020, Leibniz-Gemeinschaft 2020, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft o.J.) Darüber hinaus sind sie wissenschaftspolitisch zentrale Akteure der Open-Access-Transformation in Deutschland: Seit 2008 bearbeiten sie in der Schwerpunktinitiative Digitale Information der Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen Fragen rund um die Digitalisierung von Wissenschaft, Open Access und Open Science. Aus dieser Zusammenarbeit gingen auch die strategischen Initiativen Nationaler Open Access-Kontaktpunkt 2020 (bis 2021) und das Projekt DEAL hervor, in dessen Rahmen deutschlandweit geltende Transformationsverträge mit den führenden Wissenschaftsverlagen Springer, Wiley und Elsevier verhandelt werden.

Was ist das Ziel der Open-Access-Transformation und reichen die aktuell ergriffenen Maßnahmen aus, um dieses Ziel zu erreichen? Dies wurde im Workshop mit den Wissenschaftsorganisationen diskutiert.

Vielfalt an Strategien – wenig Koordination

Zum Auftakt des Workshops skizzierte Wolfram Horstmann, Direktor der Niedersächsischen Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, in seinem Grußwort die Ausgangslage der Diskussion: In Deutschland gäbe es eher ein Zuviel verschiedener strategischer Ansätze statt eines Mangels an Strategien. So bestünden bereits zahlreiche Foren der Zusammenarbeit, wie z.B. im Projekt DEAL, sowie die etablierten Kanäle der Bund-Länder-Abstimmung.

Andere Aspekte von Open Access, wie Diamond oder Green Open Access, blieben dabei jedoch strategisch wenig bearbeitet und es bestehe, so Horstmann weiter, ein deutliches Delta zwischen den Entwicklungen im Bereich Gold Open Access und anderen Open-Access-Formaten.

Die Anfang 2022 vom Wissenschaftsrat vorgelegten Empfehlungen seien bislang nicht in weitergehende strategische Maßnahmen überführt worden. Dasselbe gelte für die Open-Access-Strategie des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung (2018). Insofern fehle es bislang an Abstimmung zwischen den Allianzorganisationen, dem Bundesministerium sowie weiteren Stakeholdern. Diese unterschiedlichen Initiativen sollten in der gemeinsamen Diskussion aufgenommen und zusammengeführt werden.

Das Projekt Open4DE stellte im Anschluss ausgehend von den Forschungsergebnissen im Projekt zentrale Handlungsfelder für Open Access in Deutschland vor. Im Rekurs auf die Erfahrungen in anderen europäischen Ländern wurden dabei die Vorteile eines koordinierten Vorgehens im Rahmen einer nationalen Open-Access- bzw. Open-Science-Strategie aufgezeigt. Könnte die Wissenschaft in Deutschland von einem ähnlich koordinierten Vorgehen profitieren?

Zentrale Handlungsfelder leiten sich aus den Leitlinien der Allianzinitiative (2017), den Empfehlungen des Wissenschaftsrats (2022) und der DFG-Stellungnahme zur Reform der Wissenschaftsbewertung (2022) ab: neben der Finanzierung von Open Access und der damit verbundenen Empfehlung zur Einrichtung institutioneller Informationsbudgets sind diese der Auf- und Ausbau offener Infrastrukturen, die weitere Öffnung der Wissenschaft hin zu Open Science und die Reform der wissenschaftlichen Evaluation.

DEAL und Transformationsverträge

In der weiteren Diskussion zeichnete sich schnell ab, dass für viele der vertretenen Wissenschaftsorganisationen die DEAL-Verhandlungen der zentrale strategische Ansatz sind, der auch einen Großteil der vorhandenen Kapazitäten bindet. Außerhalb von DEAL werden im Rahmen des Forum 13+ Transformationsverträge mit mittelständischen Verlagen verhandelt und abgeschlossen.

Transformationsverträge sind aber strategisches Mittel und kein Selbstzweck. Damit das Instrument Transformationsvertrag hält, was es verspricht, muss sichergestellt werden, dass die Wissenschaftsverlage ihre Zeitschriften im Rahmen dieser Verträge auf Open Access umstellen. Wenn dieses Ziel nicht erreicht wird, muss die Effizienz des Mittels überdacht werden. Dies gilt auch für die DEAL-Verträge. Rainer Lange vom Wissenschaftsrat wies in diesem Zusammenhang drauf hin, dass das Ziel sein müsse, dass die Transformationsverträge zum Flipping des gesamten Systems beitragen. Wenn dieses Ziel nicht erreicht würde, müsse man auch die Strategie überprüfen.

Jenseits der Transformationsverträge: Was ist das gemeinsame Ziel der Open-Access-Transformation?

In der Diskussion wurde aber auch darauf hingewiesen, Open Access nicht auf das Verhandeln von Transformationsverträgen zu verengen. Denn nach wie vor gäbe es eine große Lücke zwischen den Anforderungen unterschiedlicher Publikationsformate und Disziplinen und den bislang für Wissenschaftler*innen in Deutschland bestehenden Möglichkeiten, im Open Access zu veröffentlichen. Wenn es weiterhin darum gehe, dass sich Open Access möglichst flächendeckend durchsetzt ­– Zielmarke: 100% Open Access – dann sei es erforderlich, weitere Maßnahmen zu ergreifen. Dies gelte sowohl für den Bereich der Monographien wie auch für diejenigen Zeitschriften, die jenseits des APC-Modells im Open Access erscheinen.

Um überhaupt die aufgewendeten Ressourcen für Open Access einzuschätzen und mittelfristig planen zu können, fordert der Wissenschaftsrat Hochschulen und Forschungseinrichtungen dazu auf, Informationsbudgets einzurichten. Für die großen Forschungseinrichtungen – MPG, und Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Helmholtz- und Leibniz-Gemeinschaft – ist dies unterschiedlich schwer oder leicht zu bewerkstelligen, je nachdem ob das die institutionelle Finanzierung von Open-Access-Publikationen wie beispielsweise bei der Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zentral organisiert ist oder, wie in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft, dezentral von 97 sehr heterogenen Instituten und unter unterschiedlichen Voraussetzungen durchgeführt wird.

Sowohl für Zeitschriften als auch für Monographien sind Fragen des Dienstleistungsumfangs, der Finanzierung und des Publikationsortes voneinander zu trennen. Zu klären wären so insbesondere für Open-Access-Monographien Qualitätsstandards, die garantieren, dass das Potential des digitalen Publizierens ausgeschöpft werden kann.

Als Alternative zu APC/BPC-basiertem Open Access ermöglichen konsortiale Modelle auch Finanzierungen in Kooperation mit kleinen und mittelständischen Verlagen (vgl. Benz und Schulz 2022). Wissenschaftsgeführte Zeitschriften erscheinen teilweise auch ohne Verlag auf institutionellen Servern. Hier wäre eine Professionalisierung und Bündelung des bestehenden Angebots denkbar.

Open Access weiter denken

Deutlich wurde, dass die Aushandlung und Umsetzung der Open Access-Finanzierung wenig Raum lässt, Open Access jenseits der Finanzierungsfragen strategisch weiterzudenken. Dies betrifft sowohl die Einbettung von Open Access in Open Science als auch die Gestaltung und Bereitstellung offener und wissenschaftsgeleiteter Infrastrukturen oder die weitere Entwicklung der Forschungsevaluation. Diese unterschiedlichen Zukunftsfragen werden in vielen europäischen Ländern im Rahmen einer gemeinsamen Open-Access- bzw. Open-Science-Strategie verfolgt. Für ein ähnliches Unterfangen bedürfte es auch in Deutschland zunächst einer Verständigung auf ein gemeinsames Ziel. In einem dynamischen internationalen Wissenschaftssystem ist dieses Ziel jedoch selbst stets in Bewegung und gleicht daher einem „moving target“.

Open Access ist unbestritten Teil eines grundlegenden und internationalen Wandels in der Wissenschaft. Es kann deshalb langfristig nicht nur darum gehen, das bestehende Publikationssystem lediglich zu digitalisieren und die Finanzierung dem anzupassen. Vielmehr stellen sich grundlegende Fragen zur (Dis-)funktionalität dieses Publikationssystems, die sich im Zusammenhang der Digitalisierung zu verschärfen scheinen (bspw. Datentracking, vgl. Ausschuss für Wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken und Informationssysteme 2021) und neue Anforderungen an die infrastrukturelle Ausgestaltung der Wissenschaft. Dies folgt auch aus der 2021 verabschiedeten UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. Internationale Initiativen wie die Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (COARA) stellen die deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen vor die Frage, ob und in welchem Umfang sie sich diesen gemeinsamen Initiativen anschließen (siehe dazu auch die Stellungnahme der Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen zur Initiative der Europäischen Kommission vom 2. Mai 2022).

Für die Zukunft wird man sich weiter über Inhalt und Ziel der Open-Access-Transformation verständigen müssen, denn die Defizite dieser Verständigung hatte der Workshop anschaulich verdeutlicht: Für den großen “Durchbruch” reichen die bislang ergriffenen Maßnahmen noch nicht aus. Um hier weiterzukommen, sollte außerdem sichergestellt werden, dass alle Stakeholder im Wissenschaftssystem gleichermaßen an der Verständigung über Ziel, Inhalt und Zwischenschritte beteiligt werden. Das langfristige Ziel einer vollständigen Transformation sollte Antrieb und Motivator dafür sein, Open Access weder strategisch noch in Hinblick auf die in den Blick genommenen Akteure und Bedarfe zu verengen.

Open4DE Spotlight on Austria: How European and National Levels Interact

Authors: Malte Dreyer, Martina Benz and Maike Neufend

Open Access is developing in an area of tension between institutional and funder policies, the economics of publishing and last but not least the communication practices of research disciplines. In a comparison across European countries, very dynamic and diverse approaches and developments can be observed. Furthermore, this international and comparative perspective helps us to assess the state of open access and open science in Germany. In this series of Open4DE project blog posts, we will summarize what we have learned in our in-depth conversations with experts on developing and implementing nationwide Open Access strategies.

From Open Access to Open Science: a European trend

Following the adoption of Open Access policies by numerous European countries in recent years, the trend is now towards the design of Open Science policies. Finland has already announced that it will publish an Open Science strategy in the near future, and France has already done so. Austria also attracted attention earlier this year, publishing a guiding paper that provides a roadmap for the implementation of Open Science in the coming years. Reason enough for us to take a closer look at how this paper came about and what the general state of Openness is in our neighboring country.

Our interview partner

We met Dr. Stefan Hanslik for a conversation about Open Science policy making in Austria. Stefan Hanslik is an expert on Open Access and Open Science at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) and acts as delegate in various scientific committees at European level. As Head of Unit for Technical Sciences, he is involved in the topics of data and research infrastructures. In addition, Stefan Hanslik has been active in the EOSC process since 2018: through this involvement he also came in touch with European initiatives on Open Science.

The European framework

The history of the development of Open Science and Open Access in Austria clearly demonstrates the importance of the European framework in which national research and publication infrastructures are situated. An example of this is the EOSC process, which initially started in Austria in 2016, among others in an informal group of representatives of universities and ministries. This group, the so-called EOSC-Café, that focused on coordination, information, reflection and consultation on European processes, allowed to find a common understanding of Open Science. The discussion of EOSC also led to the question of whether a national Open Science strategy was necessary and what it might look like. The Open Science topic finally received additional support during the Austrian EU Council Presidency in the second half of 2018, Stefan Hanslik informs us. „With the emerging discussions at EU level and the call for all member state countries to take Open Science-related measures, there was a willingness in Austria to become active. After all, no one wanted to risk infringement proceedings.” Finally, the commitment to the European Research Area was included in the principles of the current government, „a backbone for our Open Science activities, that was important tailwind.“ European measures have often a strong inward effect, one can sum up.

National factors

In addition to the activities of the EU, numerous national initiatives were also important for the development of Open Science in Austria: „The initiative originally came from institutions that had already called for more Open Science and Open Access activities in 2015 and 2016,“ Stefan Hanslik reveals. The Open Access Network Austria (OANA), consisting of representatives of Austrian universities, had already made a clear recommendation that Austria needed an Open Sccience strategy. In addition, in the process of European harmonisation in digitalisation, the Information Sharing Law was passed at government level. This initiative brought together several stakeholders, including the Wissenschaftsfond FWF. So why not continue working together right away? At this favorable moment, it seemed clear to all parties involved, that an initiative had to be taken in the field of Open Science. As is often the case, a policy process was also promoted by the favor of the hour.

Relevance of informal structures

The example of Austria illustrates very well what has already been made clear in the other contributions to this series: Policy processes are rarely driven by a single factor, but often by several stimuli. These can have a delayed effect and sometimes even partially contradict each other. The example of Austria shows that informal associations can play a key role in policy processes. For example, it was the EOSC Café, which was initially conceived as an informal grouping for the exchange of information on open science topics, in which ideas for the Austrian Open Access Policy were formulated. „Austria is not large and the university landscape is quite manageable“ states Stefan Hanslik. At the operational level, a particular challenge was to build consensus among the relevant ministries, the  Federal Ministry for Education, Research and Science (BMBWF), the Federal Ministry for Digitalisation and Economic Location (Bundesministerium für Digitalisierung und Wirtschaftsstandort BMDW, until 2020) and the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technogy (BMK).

In this process, the EOSC Café, this informal group, attained the status of a very important working tool. Because there, we were able to elaborate ideas, involve all the important players little by little and prepare the adoption of the policy. That would have been very difficult without this group and would have taken much more time.

The launch of the EOSC in Vienna in 2018 marked a turning point for this group and finally led to its institutionalisation. Today there are more working tools than the EOSC Café: An EOSC wiki and a productive EOSC Support Office Austria as well as Open Science Austria. In the meantime, EOSC Café Austria invites guests, including from the European Commission or other European countries and sees itself as an open forum. „The EOSC Café has established itself and is used again and again to deal with questions around Open Science. It is an Austrian melting pot of Open Science-affine people and very dynamic as a group,“ Stefan Hanslik tells us.

As before, this group is open: anyone involved in Open Science can participate. Amongst others, the TU Vienna, the University of Vienna, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the Natural History Museum Vienna and other institutions are involved.

The Austrian Strategy: Designable Framework, Supporting Measures

It was also with the help of this group, the EOSC-Café, that the Austrian Open Science Policy was initially created. This Policy serves as a framework helping individual institutions to develop their own strategies.  „The policy may therefore seem a bit like a toothless tiger“, admits Stefan Hanslik, “but the intention was to first bring all stakeholders to the table under the umbrella of agreeable guidelines. At the same time, it was clear all along that we wanted to keep the policy open for more elaborate positions that individual institutions, such as universities, already have and can develop further.“

Additionally, this Open Science Strategy is flanked by numerous practical measures: Activities around Open Science are financed and supported, for example by a funding program to support the digital transformation, in which more than 50 million euros are spent on 5 large projects. Although this program expires in 2024, Stefan Hanslik said that follow-up programs are already being considered.

Researchers, libraries and research funders

However, even well-funded programs are of no help if researchers do not agree. As in other countries, many researchers in Austria are very committed by heart. But – from Stefan Hanslik’s point of view – even more interesting are those who are not yet sufficiently informed. „There is a strong need to catch up across all sectors in our country,“ he diagnoses the situation. „For example, I recently had a conversation with a quantum physicist who had more questions than answers and a large need for information. That’s when I’m glad that Open Science Austria (OSA) exists. They set themselves the goal of tackling this, and reaching out into the finest roots of the research world, across all disciplines.“

Equally important and differently developed are the libraries. „We involve them, but with varying degrees of success“ notes Stefan Hanslik. The situation is different when it comes to research funders. “Here, Austria’s benefit is that there are only two funding agencies: the Fond zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF) and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). Both are committed to research infrastructure programs.” Stefan Hanslik emphasizes that they have successfully put a lot of thought into PlanS and have thus helped to shape the Austrian policy process.

Challenges

But policy processes are never over, as Stefan Hanslik remarks: „Our policy lacks examples and concrete measures for almost all topics.“ Another well-known challenge in the area of Open Science is monitoring. Here, too, helpful initiatives already exist at European level, such as the EOSC Observatory Monitoring System. „We will feed this monitoring system with our data and create a Country Profile. This will also influence budget decisions, because we want to know to what extent what needs to be funded. But there’s often a question about how to quantify certain Open Science activities.“

What can we learn from Austria?

Austria and Germany are similar in many respects. Both countries have well-developed and very active open access and open science networks, a level of knowledge on openness that varies from discipline to discipline, and a federal system that can help shape decisions and policy processes in a participatory way. In addition to these similarities, however, Stefan Hanslik points to some clear differences between Austria and Germany: „I feel envious when I look at the research infrastructure and the research data infrastructure in Germany“ he admits. But he also sees that Germany has other scale dimensions to deal with. This makes it more difficult, especially in a federal system, to get stakeholders, responsible parties at EU and at governance level at the same table and to coordinate different interests. For the development of a federal policy process in Germany, he advises to take a close look at actors who have been able to implement successful policy models in Europe. „That way, you can learn from each other.“ Indeed, it was precisely this intention that motivated us to conduct this and other interviews. However, a preliminary evaluation of our interviews and a discussion with representatives of the federal and state governments of Germany led to the conclusion that no policy model of another country is transferable to the complex German situation. On the other hand, the international comparison offers inspiration and points to aspects that would otherwise have been ignored. Austria’s early adaptation of the Open Science idea and its integration with the European Union’s science policy can provide helpful and interesting hints here.

Open4DE: Stand und Perspektiven von Open Access in Deutschland

Anmeldung zum Online Workshop

Wann: Donnerstag, 8. Dezember 2022, 9h30 – 12h30

Im Projekt Open4DE haben wir in Workshops, Interviews und Policy-Analysen den Stand von Open Access in Deutschland ermittelt und Vorschläge für den Weg zu einem bundesweiten Open-Access-Strategieprozess erarbeitet. Zum Projektabschluss möchten wir unsere Forschungsergebnisse zur Diskussion stellen:

  • Wie kann die weitere Open-Access-Transformation gestaltet werden?
  • Welche Maßnahmen könnten die Open-Access-Transformation beschleunigen?
  • Wie können zentrale Stakeholder in einem gemeinsamen Strategieprozess zusammenarbeiten?

Diese und weitere Fragen wollen wir in unserem abschließenden Workshop gemeinsam diskutieren. Unser Projekt wird mit einem Landscape-Report abschließen, der sowohl Lücken aufzeigen als auch Anreize und Potentiale darstellen soll. Darin enthalten ist ein Anforderungskatalog für einen nationalen Open-Access-Strategieprozess, in dem verschiedene Szenarien sowie Vorschläge für eine Roadmap berücksichtigt werden.

In diesem Strategieworkshop möchten wir eine übergreifende Vision sowie konkrete mittel- und langfristige Ziele, Prioritäten und Vorschläge für die nächsten Schritte entwickeln. Auf diesem Wege soll die Entwicklung und Implementierung einer Open-Access-Strategie vorangetrieben werden. Besondere Berücksichtigung findet dabei der breitere Kontextes der Transformation der Wissenschaftskommunikation und die Bedeutung von Open Science für die deutsche Wissenschaftslandschaft.

Weitere Infos und Berichte aus unserem Projekt finden Sie in der Kategorie Open4DE auf dem Open-Access-Blog Berlin.

Open4DE ist ein Verbundprojekt von

Open Access in Deutschland. Stakeholder Workshop mit Bund und Ländern

Im Mittelpunkt des dritten Stakeholder-Workshops des Projektes Open4DE standen die Herausforderungen und Chancen der Umsetzung von Open Access aus Perspektive der Landesregierungen und des Bundes.

Am 26. Juni 2022 fand in den Räumen des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) in Berlin ein Workshop statt, in dem Vertreter*innen der 16 Bundesländer eingeladen waren, sich mit Vertreter*innen des BMBF über gemeinsame Standpunkte zu Open Access auszutauschen. Treffen dieser Art sind nicht neu; bereits seit 2019 findet ein Austausch in dieser Runde statt. Dieses Jahr konnte das Projekt Open4DE gemeinsam mit dem BMBF diesen Workshop in Präsenz organisieren und die Diskussion zum Status Quo in Deutschland mit ersten Projektergebnissen anreichern.

In zwei Vorträgen stellten Projektmitarbeiter*innen Forschungsergebnisse vor. Der Fokus lag dabei auf der Frage, was Deutschland in Hinblick auf eine nationale Open-Access-Strategie von anderen Ländern lernen kann und darauf, welcher Handlungsbedarf sich konkret auf Landes- und Bundesebene erkennen lässt. Am Nachmittag wurden gezielt gemeinsame Standpunkte diskutiert. Dazu wurden in zwei weiteren Impulsvorträgen die “Empfehlungen zur Transformation des wissenschaftlichen Publizierens zu Open Access” vom Wissenschaftsrat und das DFG Positionspapier “Wissenschaftliches Publizieren als Grundlage und Gestaltungsfeld der Wissenschaftsbewertung” vorgestellt.

Was kann Deutschland von anderen Ländern lernen?

Die Forschungsergebnisse basieren auf Interviews, die von Januar bis Mai 2022 zu Policy-Prozessen in acht verschiedenen Ländern mit Expert*innen durchgeführt wurden. Dabei wurden Fragen zum gesamten Policy-Prozess gestellt, angefangen von den Rahmenbedingungen über die institutionelle Verankerung, Kooperationen und Konflikte zwischen den Akteursgruppen bis hin zur Strategieentwicklung selbst, die mit Fragen zu Beteiligungsprozessen und der Funktionsweise von Arbeitsgruppen zur Entwicklung von Open Access Policies näher beleuchtet wurde. Bei der Auswahl der Länder (Finnland, Schweden, Litauen, Irland, Niederlande, Großbritannien, Frankreich, Österreich) wurde auf das Vorhandensein strategischer Abläufe geachtet, entweder in Form von nationalen Strategien oder in Form bestehender Diskussionen über eine nationale Strategie. Aus den Interviews ließen sich übergeordnete Themen extrahieren: Vorteile nationaler Strategien, Erkenntnisse zur Steuerung von Strategieprozessen und schließlich Herausforderungen und Zukunftsthemen.

Die Vorteile einer nationalen Strategie sind vielseitig und zeigen sich je nach Kontext auf unterschiedliche Weise. Für das föderal aufgestellte Deutschland stellt sich deshalb zurecht die Frage, welche Rolle eine nationale Strategie hier spielen kann. Am Beispiel anderer Länder sehen wir allerdings, dass unabhängig von den Rahmenbedingungen das Agenda-Setting bereits weitreichende Impulse gibt, die nicht nur auf Ebene der Institutionen, sondern auch bei Wissenschaftler*innen Aufmerksamkeit erregen. Zudem können mit einer nationalen Strategie Aktivitäten, die zahlreich, aber auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen angesiedelt sind, synchronisiert werden. Neben der Aufwertung des Themas wird auch die internationale Sichtbarkeit und Zusammenarbeit durch eine nationale Strategie gestärkt. Wichtig ist hierbei, dass die Wirksamkeit einer solchen Strategie immer nur im Zusammenwirken mit entsprechenden Maßnahmen Legitimation erfährt. In Bezug auf die nationale Strategieentwicklung in Frankreich erwähnte Pierre Mounier im Interview:

„Viele Jahre lang war Open Access eine Sache des persönlichen Engagements von Einzelpersonen innerhalb von Institutionen. Persönliches Engagement auf der Grundlage politischer Werte. Wenn man das tut, funktioniert es lokal, aber irgendwann erreicht man eine gläserne Decke. Man bekommt keine allgemeine Bewegung, weil es nur eine Sache von Einzelpersonen ist. Das hat sich in Frankreich wirklich geändert.“

Pierre Mounier, Deputy Director of OpenEdition; OPERAS; Member of the Open Science Committee at the French Ministry of Research, Frankreich

In Frankreich, das bereits den zweiten nationalen Open Science Plan veröffentlicht hat, ist die Steuerung dieser Prozesse am Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung angegliedert. Dies ist jedoch nicht in allen Ländern der Fall. Dort, wo es nationale Infrastrukturen gibt, werden diese auch genutzt: In Irland wurde beispielsweise ein National Open Research Forum (NORF) gegründet, dessen Koordinator am Digital Repository of Irland angesiedelt ist und in Schweden sitzt das Lenkungsgremium an der Nationalbibliothek. Finnland stellt wiederum einen interessanten Sonderfall dar, denn dort wurde die nationale Steuerung von Open Science and Research (OScAR) vom Ministerium an die Federation of Finnish Learned Societies übertragen, was die Legitimität der Maßnahmen und Empfehlungen zunehmend erhöht hat.

Es lässt sich zusammenfassen, dass insbesondere die Herausforderung, möglichst Viele am Steuerungsprozess zu beteiligen, vielfältige Lösungsansätze benötigt. Ob durch offene Foren und Arbeitsgruppen, offene Phasen der Konsultation, über Anreizsysteme oder eine Konsultation über die Fachvertretungen: sowohl die große Heterogenität der Fächer und Fachkulturen als auch die Stärken und Schwächen unterschiedlicher Akteur*innen beim Thema Open Access bergen das Risiko in sich, dass ein nationaler Prozess ins Stocken gerät oder parallel laufende Entwicklungen auseinanderdriften. Deshalb gilt es aus einem Kreislauf herauszukommen, in dem die Verantwortung für den notwendigen Kulturwandel zugunsten der Open-Access-Transformation immer wieder bei den Wissenschaftler*innen gesucht wird, ohne einen nationalen Prozess der Teilhabe zu entwickeln, der eine politische Steuerung eben dieses Kulturwandels ermöglicht. Dabei sind es insbesondere Themen wie die Erweiterung von Open Access zu Open Science, offene Forschungsdaten und die Reform der Forschungsbewertung, die nur durch einen breit angelegten Prozess der Konsultation zielführend bearbeitet werden können.

Wo besteht Handlungsbedarf innerhalb der Open-Access-Landschaft in Deutschland?

Nationale Strategien sind also effektiv, erleichtern das Agenda-Setting und den internationalen Vergleich, bilden einen starken Bezugspunkt und ein Mandat für Maßnahmen auf Einrichtungsebene und erleichtern die internationale Zusammenarbeit. Was können Interessenvertretungen wie Bund und Länder zum Prozess der Entwicklung einer nationalen Strategie beitragen und was haben sie bereits beigetragen? Auch diese Frage wurde im Projekt Open4DE untersucht. Die Ergebnisse basieren auf einer Auswertung von Strategien und Policies von Einrichtungen, Wissenschaftsorganisationen, Landesregierungen und Fachgesellschaften sowie auf der Auswertung des Open Access Atlas Deutschland (2022), der im Projekt open-access.network am Open-Access-Büro Berlin entstanden ist. Dabei wurde für diesen Workshop der Fokus auf die Landesregierung als Akteurin in der Open-Access-Transformation gelegt und auf die Verantwortung, die dieser in den Dokumenten zugeschrieben wird.

Der Open Access Atlas Deustchland (2022) verzeichnet die Open-Access-Aktivitäten auf Bundes- und Länderebene. Es lässt sich feststellen, dass Open Access je nach Bundesland einen unterschiedlichen Entwicklungsstand erreicht hat. Bund und einige Länder haben Strategien verabschiedet oder planen diese, andere unterstützen Open Access durch Instrumente der Hochschulsteuerung wie in Wissenschafts- bzw. Hochschulentwicklungsplänen oder sie benennen Open Access als Handlungsfeld innerhalb von Digitalstrategien. Gezielte Maßnahmen reichen dabei von eigenen Landeseinrichtungen zur Vernetzung und Kommunikation über die Finanzierung von Publikationsfonds bis hin zu spezifischen Förderlinien. Hierbei zeigt sich nicht nur eine große Vielfalt, sondern es stellt sich auch die Frage, wie der “langfristige[…] Betrieb von Diensten über Bundesländergrenzen hinweg” gestaltet werden kann (DFG. 2018. Förderung von Informationsinfrastrukturen für die Wissenschaft). Diskutiert wurde die Frage auch im Workshop, denn zentrale Lösungen für bestimmte Herausforderungen zu finden, kann für eine breit aufgestellte und divers ausgerichtete Open-Access-Transformation von Vorteil sein.

Konkrete Aufgabe der Länder ist es, die Rahmenbedingungen für eine Open-Access-Transformation mitzugestalten. Zu diesen Rahmenbedingungen können unterschiedliche Maßnahmen gezählt werden. Im Projekt Open4DE konnten neben Infrastruktur, rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen und Forschungsförderung sechs weitere Felder identifiziert werden.

  • Dazu gehört einmal die Verantwortung der Ministerien, selbst eine Open-Access-Praxis vorzuleben, denn häufig werden von Ministerien herausgegebene Dokumente ohne persistente Identifikatoren wie DOIs oder stabile URLs publiziert. Das Handlungsfeld offener Verwaltungsdaten (open (government) data) ist viel diskutiert, dabei sollte das Open-Access-Publizieren von Eigenpublikationen ebenso auf die Agenda gesetzt werden, sofern rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen dies zulassen.
  • Zum zweiten liegt die Verantwortung, den Mehrwert von Open Access für die Gesellschaft zu kommunizieren, auch im Bereich der Landeseinrichtungen. Häufig werden die Vorteile, die durch Open Access erzielt werden, auf Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und Innovation beschränkt, insbesondere wenn ein Mehrwert im Austausch mit der Wirtschaft gesucht wird. Dabei gilt es den Blick für Gerechtigkeitsfragen zu weiten und diese auch im globalen Zusammenhang zu verorten. Gerechtigkeitsfragen können im Bedeutungsfeld Open Access bspw. über einen demokratisierten Informationszugriff adressiert werden, der einen Mehrwert für die Gesamtgesellschaft generiert.
  • Drittens ist die Gestaltung der Teilhabe an wissenschaftspolitischen Prozessen eine der Aufgaben, an der Landeseinrichtungen maßgeblich mitwirken können. Die Zugänglichkeit von Forschung wird häufig auf Institutionen und deren Angehörige beschränkt, sollte aber für alle möglich sein, d.h. für Autor*innen und alle lesenden Personen. Zudem ist die Repräsentation von Wissenschaftler*innen ein Problem im Prozess der Konsolidierung von übergeordneten Strategien, d.h. es wird häufig für die wissenschaftliche Community gesprochen, aber diese ist kaum in Strategieprozessen repräsentiert.
  • Das Umsetzen von Empfehlungen ist dabei eine der Hauptaufgaben, denen Landeseinrichtungen nachkommen, bspw. indem Strategien und Policies auf Länderebene veröffentlicht werden. Diese Dokumente sind Ergebnisse eines zeitgebundenen Diskurses und bedürfen damit einer Aktualisierung. Policy-Prozesse sollten zu Ergebnissen führen, die dauerhafte Möglichkeiten der Beteiligung und Konsolidierung eröffnen.
  • Ein wichtiges Instrument, um den Erfolg von Open Access zu messen, sind die Berichtsstrukturen. Monitoring findet in einigen Ländern auf Länderebene statt, auf nationaler Ebene durch den Open Access Monitor (OAM) und an einzelnen Einrichtungen. Ziel ist es, das Publikationsaufkommen vollständig zu erheben. Das Problem ist hier allerdings häufig eine Verengung auf wissenschaftliche Artikel in Open-Access-Zeitschriften, die wiederum zu einer Verzerrung des Feldes führt. Eine Diversifizierung der Berichtsstrukturen auf verschiedene Publikationsformate und -praktiken bedarf weiterer Entwicklung und Implementierung.
  • Zuletzt liegt auch der Kulturwandel zugunsten von Open Access teilweise im Aufgabenfeld der Landeseinrichtungen, denn die Reputationsökonomie ist wichtiger Bestandteil dieses Kulturwandels und eine Veränderung bedarf einer systemischen Reform. Wie zuletzt durch das DFG-Positionspapier zu wissenschaftlichem Publizieren erläutert, geht es dabei um eine Veränderung der Qualitätssicherung, die nicht bloß auf einer Quantifizierung beruhen kann. Um qualitative Indikatoren für die Reputationsmessung zu stärken, kann ein Kriterienkatalog für die Bewertung von Forschungsarbeiten und Forscher*innen entwickelt werden, der vielfältig, objektivierbar und offen zugänglich ist und explizit Aspekte offener Wissenschaft einbezieht. Dieser muss zwar innerhalb der Wissenschaft entwickelt werden, eine Unterstützung dieses Kulturwandels muss jedoch auch durch Policy-Prozesse auf Landesebene geschehen. Hierzu gibt es bereits reichlich Empfehlungen, die auf eine Umsetzung warten, zuletzt die “Council conclusions on research assessment and implementation of open science” vom Rat der Europäischen Union (Juni 2022), das „Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment“ (Juli 2022) von der European University Alliance (EUA), Science Europe und der Europäischen Kommission sowie der zuvor publizierte “Paris Call on Research Assessment” vom French Open Science Committee (Februar 2022).

Ausblick: Eine nationale Open-Access-Strategie für Deutschland

Eine Diskussion über diese Themenfelder wurde bereits in den vorherigen Austauschrunden zwischen Bund und Ländern zu Open Access geführt. Dieser Workshop konnte dazu beitragen, die Rollen und Handlungsfelder der Stakeholder in diesem Prozess zu reflektieren und die Open-Access-Landschaft in Deutschland in ein internationales Verhältnis zu setzen. Das Projekt Open4DE plant für Dezember 2022 einen Multi-Stakeholder-Workshop, in dessen Rahmen die Projektergebnisse in Form von Empfehlungen und einer Roadmap für eine nationale Strategie vorgeschlagen und diskutiert werden. Dabei geht es in erster Linie um eine gemeinsame Perspektive für den weiteren Strategieprozess, an dem auch die Vertreter*innen der Landeseinrichtungen und des Bundes beteiligt sein werden.

Fachcommunities könnten Vorreiter sein

Im Mittelpunkt des zweiten Stakeholder-Workshops des Projektes Open4DE standen die Herausforderungen und Chancen der Umsetzung von Open Access aus Perspektive der Fachgesellschaften

Das Projekt Open4DE, Stand und Perspektiven für eine Open-Access-Strategie für Deutschland erhebt auf der Grundlage einer qualitativen Auswertung von Policy-Dokumenten den Umsetzungsstand von Open Access in Deutschland. Im zweiten Schritt entwickelt das Projekt im Dialog mit den wichtigsten Stakeholdern im Feld Empfehlungen für eine bundesweite Open Access-Strategie. Bereits im Januar fand in diesem Rahmen ein Workshop mit dem scholar.led-network Netzwerk statt. Am 24. Mai 2022 waren Vertreter*innen der Fachgesellschaften zu einer gemeinsamen Diskussion eingeladen.

Rund zwanzig Fachgesellschaftsvertreter*innen aus geistes-, sozial-, und naturwissenschaftlichen Organisationen waren der Einladung von Open4DE gefolgt, darunter viele, die insbesondere mit den organisationseigenen Publikationen befasst sind, aber auch Mitarbeiter*innen der Geschäftsstellen und Vorstandsmitglieder. Im ersten Teil des Workshops stellte das Projekt Open4DE seine Ergebnisse aus der Untersuchung des Umsetzungs- und Diskussionsstandes von Open Access und Open Science in den Fachgesellschaften vor.

Umsetzungsstand von Open Access in den Fachgesellschaften

Open Access setzt sich, verbunden mit unterschiedlichen fachlichen Publikationskulturen, in wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen ungleich durch (vgl. z.B. Severin et al. 2022). Während die Physik bereits in den frühen 1990er Jahren eigene Publikationsinfrastrukturen für die fachinterne Zirkulation von Preprints aufbaute (arXiv), spielt in anderen wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen bis heute die Monographie eine zentrale Rolle.

Abb.1. Am Anfang des Workshops wurden die teilnehmenden Vertreter:innen der Fachgesellschaften gefragt, mit welchen Aspekten von Open Acces Sie in ihrer täglichen Praxis zu tun haben. Die Antworten deuten bereits Schwerpunkte in eigener Publikationstätigkeit an

Förderlich für die Aufgeschlossenheit gegenüber Open Access ist ein hoher Nutzen des offenen Zugangs zu digitalisierten Daten (wie z.B. in der Archäologie). Auch die transnationale Vernetzung von Fachdisziplinen mit ärmeren Ländern fördert die Akzeptanz von Open Access. Teilweise sind es eher die kleinen Fächer, die Vorreiter von Open Access und Open Science sind, da sie besonders von einer höheren Sichtbarkeit und einer freien Dissemination ihrer Daten profitieren (vgl. Arbeitsstelle kleiner Fächer 2020).

Policy-Papiere mit konkreten Handlungsanleitungen zur Umsetzung von Open Access haben Fachgesellschaften nicht verabschiedet. Einige Fachgesellschaften bringen sich aber mit Stellungnahmen in die Diskussion um Open Access und Open Science ein. Insbesondere Plan S löste Debatten aus (vgl. DMV et al. 2019). Dabei steht die Sorge um die Zukunft des wissenschaftlichen Publikationswesens an erster Stelle.

Weitere Diskursanlässe sind die Transformation fachgesellschaftseigener Publikationen in Open Access (vgl. DGSKA 2021) sowie der Umgang mit (offenen) Forschungsdaten (vgl. DGfE 2017; DGfE/GEBF/GFD 2020; DGV 2018; Schönbrodt/Gollwitzer/Abele-Brehm 2017; Abele-Brehm et al. 2017; Gollwitzer et al. 2018, 2021). Letzteres zeigt auch, wie fachwissenschaftliche Selbstverständigungsprozesse von außen evoziert werden, hier durch die Aufforderung der DFG, disziplinäre Richtlinien im Forschungsdatenmanagement zu formulieren (vgl. DFG 2015).

Trotz dieser zahlreichen Einzelinitiativen bleibt festzustellen, dass sich die Fachgesellschaften insgesamt – von einigen bedeutsamen Ausnahmen abgesehen – eher wenig sicht- und hörbar in die Diskussion und Aushandlung von Open Access in Deutschland eingebracht haben. Unter den rund 750 Unterzeichner*innen der Berliner Erklärung von 2003 sind zahlreiche Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen aber nur vier Fachgesellschaften (Stand: 28. Juni 2022). Die Gelegenheit, die Open-Access-Transformation als Anlass zu nutzen, um wissenschaftliche Standards vor dem Hintergrund eines grundlegenden Wandels von Wissenschaft durch die Digitalisierung innerhalb der eigenen Fachcommunity zu diskutieren und damit diese Transformation aktiv mitzugestalten (vgl. z.B. Ganz 2020), wird bislang nur in wenigen Fachgesellschaften aktiv ergriffen. Das überrascht, da Fachgesellschaften Orte der Selbstorganisation und der Selbstverständigung fachlicher Communities sind (vgl. Wissenschaftsrat 1992). Finden in den Fachcommunities keine Diskussionen über Open Access und Open Science statt oder sind diese lediglich nicht sichtbar, weil sie nicht in öffentlichen Stellungnahmen münden? In jedem Fall bleibt festzustellen, dass die Entwicklung des Themas Open Access in den Fachgesellschaften noch viel Potential besitzt. „Fachcommunities könnten eine Vorreiterrolle einnehmen“, sagte ein Teilnehmende  in Hinblick auf die gegenwärtige Situation und benannte damit sowohl die Chancen als auch die Herausforderungen der wissenschaftsnahen Entwicklung des Themas Open Access.

Im Anschluss an diese Gegenwartsdiagnose wurden in unserem Workshop folgende Handlungsfelder identifiziert: 

  1. Die Ausgestaltung des wissenschaftlichen Publikationswesens in der Open-Access-Transformation (Geschäftsmodelle, Finanzierung, Publikationsformate).
  2. Qualitätssicherung, wissenschaftliche Anerkennungsverfahren und Reputationssysteme
  3. Die Definition der Rolle fachwissenschaftlicher Communities in der Open-Access-Transformation als Vertreter*innen und Sprachrohr ihrer Community in Governance-Prozessen.

Aus diesen Handlungsfeldern wurden im Anschluss in Arbeitsgruppen weitere Fragen, Maßnahmen und Empfehlungen abgeleitet:

Reputationssysteme

Ausgangspunkt der Diskussion in einer der beiden Arbeitsgruppen war die Beobachtung, dass Wissenschaftler*innen in erster Linie in möglichst angesehenen Zeitschriften und Verlagen publizieren wollen. Open Access sei demgegenüber eine nachgeordnete Frage, es bestünden zum Teil Vorbehalte bezüglich der Qualität. Angesichts des starken Drucks, sich durch Artikel in High Impact Journals zu etablieren, bleibe Open Access ein marginales Thema. Damit Open Access mehr Gewicht bekomme, müsse das Reputationssystem reformiert werden. Ob und wie Fachgesellschaften diesbezüglich eine Rolle übernehmen können, diskutierte die eine Arbeitsgruppe intensiv, während in der anderen Arbeitsgruppe die Meinung vorherrschte, dass Wissenschaftler*innen und ihre Organisationen selbst diese Veränderung aktiv betreiben müssten.

Die Bedeutung der Monographie

Ein wichtiger Faktor in der Open Access-Transformation ist insbesondere für die Vertreter*innen von geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Fachgesellschaften die Bedeutung der Monographie. Bisher lagen die Schwerpunkte konsortialer Transformationsabkommen aber im Bereich der Zeitschriften. Mit Blick auf die Entwicklungspotentiale der Transformation des Monographienmarktes wurde unter anderem diskutiert, welche Rolle Verlage im Bereich der Qualitätssicherung haben. Bei genauerem Hinsehen, so die vorherrschende Meinung, seien es aber nicht ausschließlich die Verlage, die Qualität sichern, sondern häufig im selben Maße die Herausgeber*innen, die mit ihrem Namen für Qualität einstehen. Bemerkt wurde zusätzlich, dass Mittel für Open-Access-Bücher oft knapp seien. So stellte sich abschließend die Frage, welche fairen Lösungen für eine Finanzierung entwickelt werden können. Müssten Fachgesellschaften letztendlich selbst Repositorien und andere Infrastrukturen für die Publikation von Monographien aufbauen? Letzteres sei kaum leistbar. Als möglicher Weg, sich als Fachgesellschaft einzubringen, wurde schließlich die Publikation eigener Open-Access-Buchreihen benannt, die durch anerkannte Wissenschaftler*innen eines Fachgebietes herausgegeben werden.

Best Practices

In Bezug auf die eigene Rolle als Herausgeber*in von Zeitschriften wurden positive Erfahrungen und Handlungsmöglichkeiten geteilt: so durchläuft die Zeitschrift der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie (DGSKA) aktuell einen Transformationsprozess: auf APCs wird dabei verzichtet, die Finanzierung der Zeitschrift erfolgt durch die Fachgesellschaft, deren Mitglieder an der Entscheidung über die Umstellung beteiligt wurden und diese überwiegend positiv aufnehmen. Dies zeigt, dass jenseits von APCs auch andere Geschäftsmodelle möglich sind, z.B. durch konsortiale Finanzierungen, wie sie etwa in der Open Library of Humanities praktiziert oder in KOALA angestrebt werden. Über diese unterschiedlichen Möglichkeiten müsse das Bewusstsein bei den Autor*innen deutlich gestärkt werden.

Anreize zur Offenheit

Um eine Kultur der Offenheit im Publikationswesen – und dort insbesondere in der Qualitätssicherung – zu fördern, bedarf es also häufig einer verstärkten Informationsinitiative unter den Mitgliedern. Der Kenntnisstand zum Thema Offene Wissenschaft ist je nach Fachkultur unterschiedlich stark ausgeprägt. Einige Teilnehmende sprachen diesbezüglich auch von einem Generationenkonflikt unter den Mitgliedern, wobei jüngere Wissenschaftler*innen oft aufgeschlossener gegenüber Open Science und Open Access seien. Anreizsysteme können in einer solchen Situation den Kulturwandel befördern.

Ideen und Vorschläge für ein stärkeres Commitment zu offener Wissenschaft gab es viele in der Diskussion; teilweise wurde auf bereits praktizierte Maßnahmen hingewiesen. Insgesamt entstand auf diese Weise ein umfassendes Bild bereits existierender und geplanter Leistungen der Fachgesellschaften im Feld Open Access. Genannt wurde die Einrichtung von Publikationsfonds durch Fachgesellschaften, das Aussprechen von Empfehlungen für Qualitätskriterien für Zeitschriften oder die Vergabe von Preisen für Open-Access- und Open-Science-Projekte. Auch die Entwicklung von Konzepten für den Umgang mit personenbezogenen Daten sowie von Ethik-Leitlinien für Forschungsdaten könne Anreize für den Kulturwandel hin zu mehr Offenheit setzen.

Synergien schaffen

Im Allgemeinen äußerten viele den Wunsch, Konzepte und Leitlinien gemeinsam zu erarbeiten, denn finanzielle und personelle Ressourcen seien auch in den Fachgesellschaften knapp. Der Wunsch, Publikationsinfrastrukturen übergeordnet zu finanzieren, wurde mehrfach zum Ausdruck gebracht.

Gerechtigkeits- und Nachhaltigkeitsfragen

Diskutiert wurde auch, dass inzwischen zwar viele reputationsreiche Zeitschriften open access seien, die von ihnen verlangten Article Processing Charges stellten jedoch ein Problem für Autor*innen außerhalb gut ausgestatteter Forschungseinrichtungen dar. Deshalb stelle sich die Frage, wie nachhaltig die Finanzierung von APC/BPC-basiertem Open Access angesichts steigender Kosten und Publikationszahlen sein könne. Im Rahmen der DEAL-Verträge werden auch Open-Access-Publikationen in hybriden Zeitschriften finanziert. Davon profitieren z.T. auch Fachgesellschaften, die Herausgeber wissenschaftlicher Journals sind, wie die anwesende Gesellschaft deutscher Chemiker (GDCH). Doch auch dieses Modell wird kritisch diskutiert (vgl. Oberländer/Tullney 2021).

Die Rolle der Politik und der Forschungsförderer

Bezüglich der Empfehlungen an die Politik äußerten die Teilnehmenden den Wunsch, dass Forderung und Förderung (beispielsweise durch die Entwicklung vorhandener Infrastruktur) Hand in Hand gehen müssten: Teilweise sei es so, dass Fördereinrichtungen Vorgaben machten, während gleichzeitig die notwendigen (finanziellen und technischen) Rahmenbedingungen, um diese zu erfüllen, nicht bestünden. Hier sei erforderlich, dass mehr Rückkopplung stattfinde. Überhaupt sei es wünschenswert, dass Fachgesellschaften analog zur Nationalen Forschungsdaten-Infrastruktur (NFDI) auch im Bereich Open Access an einer Koordinationsstelle beteiligt seien. Hilfreich wäre es auch, wenn Verantwortliche in Politik und Fördereinrichtungen Checklisten aufstellten, anhand derer Open-Science-Standards abgeglichen und entwickelt werden könnten. Grundlegend müsse es darum gehen, Nachhaltigkeit im Wissenschaftssystem zu garantieren und transparente Kostenmodelle für das Publikationswesen zu entwickeln.

Die Rolle der Fachgesellschaften in der der Transformation

Immer wieder wurde im Laufe des Workshops das Selbstverständnis der Fachgesellschaften im Prozess der Transformation thematisiert. Brauchen (kleine) Fachgesellschaften angesichts der Open-Access-Transformation eine Strategie? Zumindest stellte sich die Frage, wie sie ihre Rolle angesichts der grundlegenden Veränderungen im Wissenschaftssystem (neu) definieren. Dies kann bedeuten, eine wissenschaftspolitische Rolle einzunehmen oder wiederzuentdecken. Zunächst ginge es aber, so einige der Anwesenden, darum, einen Überblick über die Entwicklungen im eigenen Fach zu erlangen und eine eigene Expertise zu entwickeln, um dann einen Verständigungsprozess mit den Mitgliedern anzustoßen. Zur Diskussion stand somit auch, wie Beteiligungs- und Verständigungsprozesse gestaltet werden könnten. Ferner wurde wiederholt diskutiert, ob Fachgesellschaften in der Lage seien, selbst verlegerisch tätig zu werden und welche administrativen und technischen Fragen sich daraus ergeben würden?

Den Abschluss des Workshops bildete der Ausblick auf den weiteren Projektverlauf. Dabei wurden die Teilnehmer*innen eingeladen, sich an einem im Herbst geplanten Strategieworkshop anlässlich des Projektabschlusses weiter an der Diskussion zu beteiligen. Dieser Aufforderung nachkommen zu wollen, erklärten sich in einer abschließenden Umfrage alle Anwesenden bereit.

Literaturangaben


Open4DE Spotlight on Finland – An advanced culture of openness shaped by the research community

Authors: Malte Dreyer, Martina Benz and Maike Neufend

Open Access (OA) is developing in an area of tension between institutional and funder policies, the economics of publishing and last but not least the communication practices of research disciplines. In a comparison across European countries, very dynamic and diverse approaches and developments can be observed. Furthermore, this international and comparative perspective helps us to assess the state of open access and open science (OA and OS) in Germany. In this series of Open4DE project blog posts, we will summarize what we have learned in our in-depth conversations with experts on developing and implementing nationwide Open Access strategies.

After starting this series with an article about Lithuania and Sweden, we now continue our journey around the Baltic Sea. Our next stop is Finland:

In a comparison of European Openness strategies, Finland stands out for its sophisticated system of coordinated policy measures. While other countries have a strategy that bundles different aspects of the Openness culture into one central policy, the Finnish model impresses with unity in diversity. The website of the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, which was set up specifically to provide information on Open Science (OS), lists four national policies on OS and research in Finland. In addition to a policy for data and methods, a policy on open access to scholary publications and a policy on open education and educational ressources document activity at a high level. The openness culture in Finland targets all stages of scientific communication but also teaching and learning. In addition, a national information portal provides orientation on publication venues, projects and publicly funded technical infrastructures. It is an exemplary tool to get an overview of the constantly growing Open Access (OA) and OS ecosystem and its numerous products and projects.

OA&OS-culture in Finland

Such an advanced stage in the development of openness can only be achieved through the persistence of political goals. The basis for this is a political and scientific culture whose fundamental values favour the idea of openness. OS and OA are seen as aspects of a comprehensive, science-ethical framework that unites issues such as internationalisation, gender equality and integrity of science in the term “responsible science”. In its guidelines Responsible conduct of research and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct in Finland the Finnish National Board of Research Integrity (TENK) establishes this connection between responsible conduct in science and openness. The 2012 version which is still valid today states:

2. The methods applied for data acquisition as well as for research and evaluation, conform to scientific criteria and are ethically sustainable. When publishing the research results, the results are communicated in an open and responsible fashion that is intrinsic to the dissemination of scientific knowledge (highlighting by the authors of this article).

“Responsible Science is an umbrella-term. Policy-making under this umbrella is based on the integrity of scientists, not on judicial decisions and laws,” says Sami Niinimäki, contact person for OS at the Finnish Ministry of Science and interview partner of Open4DE. In his role as a counsellor of education in the department of higher education and science policy in the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture Sami Niinimäki is well-versed in all issues related to science and education, funding and evidence-based policy-making. Quality assurance is also a defining theme for the ministry’s activities, Sami says. We meet via zoom on a Friday at the end of March to talk about Finland’s Open Science policy for an hour. A early spring day in Helsinki, Sami Niinimäki tells about the history of Finnish OS and OA policy-making: 

Data as a starting point

“We started with the data. In other places, it begins with publications but in Finland we invested first in the data infrastructure” says Sami Niinimäki, naming a special feature of the development of OA in Finland right at the beginning of our conversation. First discussions about opening up science date back to the 1990s, when people were aware of the benefits of OA&OS but had not yet pushed ahead with the development at a larger scale. The topic became prominent in the 2000s when the ministry, which at that time was responsible for the system architecture of science communication, realised that open data also represented an exciting field of activity. The first ministerial initiative in this field began at the end of the decade and ran from 2009 to 2014. Among other things, it created the conditions for long-term digital preservation. Together with the open science and research initiative from 2013 to 2017, these programmes created infrastructures, researched scientific cultures and conducted surveys on the maturity of OA and OS developments. Researching the field led to a kind of friendly competition among institutional actors and, at the level of individual institutions, had the positive effect of making their own openness culture thematically and publicly transparent, Sami Niinimäki tells us.

From the Ministry to the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies

The actual policy process, in which research funders, universities, colleges and other institutions work on national policy documents, is today coordinated by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, a national co-operative body for learned societies in Finland. According to its own information, the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies has a membership of 293 societies and four academies from all branches of arts and sciences, in total 260 000 individual members, and also supports and develops the role of its members in science policy discussions. Expert groups on science policy issues meet under its umbrella, currently these are “The Committee for Public Information”, “The Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity”, which is under the self-governance of the scientific community, and the “Publication Forum”. In addition, the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies is active in creating roadmaps and organises so-called forum meetings. “The change of responsibility for our policy process from the Ministry to the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies was a kind of natural evolution”, Sami Niinimäki points out. But in retrospect, this development made total sense:

“The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies hosts the research integrity board since the 1990s and their work relies on the integrity in the research community: why not include OS in a visible way in the same package? Possibly this happened per accident, but we had to go through these steps to reach a higher maturity level. In the ministry we failed to reach the research community, our audience included the same 400 people we talked to every time and with the Federation, the message reached further audiences, even trade unions.”

The change of responsibilities, the inclusion of new actors and the re-organisation of running processes is nothing new in the eyes of policy research. According to Sybille Münch’s Research on Interpretative Policy-Analysis (2016), policy processes rarely run as smoothly as the theory of the policy cycle suggests. In the Finnish case, however, the change of responsibility seems to have been achieved with little loss: Even more, the linking of the policy process to the research-community has led to productive participation of the target group. A manageable time commitment combined with the prospect of influence motivates stakeholders to this day to help shape policy processes through active committee work, says Sami Niinimäki.

During the interview, we repeatedly learn how important a culture of participation is for the Finnish model. Exemplary is not only the management of the policy process through an organization which represents the interests of scientists, but also the implementation of Plan S, which was informed by an open consultation at the University of Helsinki.

Problems and challenges

Problems do exist, however. In Finland, for example, the implementation of the European guidelines on the secondary publication right has failed – initial attempts in this direction failed in particular because of the resistance of trade union and copyright lobby groups. Sami Niinimäki is convinced that resistance in the community can be broken by communicating the goals clearly – often resistance is caused by misunderstandings. However, Finland compensates the absence of a legal basis by consistency in practicing green OA. “Our goal is to publish national OA journals on a common platform in journal.fi” says Sami Niinimäki.

The important function of repositories in Finland is well known and has attracted attention from German colleagues before. But it is not only the infrastructure that is important: Sami Niinimäki mentions research funding as another important challenge in the implementation of OA. Moreover, ultimatively, it always comes down to the decisions of researchers: “Researchers understand that they have to produce impact and this gives incentives to use open copyright licences.” The fact that it all depends on the scientists also applies to research evaluation, a central field of work for policy-makers as Sami Niinimäki states:

“When you look at all the issues each of them lead to the core of the assessment  problem. This needs to be solved. In Finland we are on a good way, research organisations have signed the DORA-declaration and we have a national policy on research assessment, wich is very much compliant with DORA.”

With the signing of DORA, Finland is a step ahead of Germany: here, only a few research organisations have signed this document. But much more can be done also in Finland. Following Sami Niinimäki, it would be desirable for a peer review to be seen as equivalent to a publication. At the very least, a way should be found to also map these activities in reputation-building metrics. A proposal that not only seems relevant and attractive for Finland. The EU has already taken up this issue, among others in its scoping report on research assessment systems.

Taking stock: what can we learn from Finland?

The Finnish path shows that OA is favoured by a publishing culture in which repository-based OA became the standard early on. Participatory processes also promote acceptance in the long term. The fact that OA and OS are supported by broad acceptance is not least because of the numerous opportunities for participation through which stakeholders can get involved in policy processes. As mentioned above, the formulation and enforcement of the rules of research integrity is in the hands of the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies – an organization representing the scientists. The participatory implementation of PlanS, also mentioned above, is also evidence of a culture of participation. “Starting point is the openness and transparency of science as well as the mutual trust between researchers and research organisations. The model of self-regulation works well in democracies akin to Finland” is written on the webpage of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity. At the same time, an accompanying, careful regulation is also beneficial, says Sami Niinimäki:

“Research funders can call the play, if research funders show maturity, then the organisations that benefit from their funding also change their culture. It is a domino process. And this dynamic also played out at the European level.”

Whereas in Finland the rule of government is “as much as necessary, as little as possible”, the rule of self-government is “as much as possible, as little as necessary”. This creates a domino effect that develops a momentum of its own. Now, of course, with regard to Germany, the question is which dominoes must fall here in order to further advance the process of conversion to OA. Finland shows that the connection to researchers is of particular importance. In Germany, unfortunately, the professional societies have not yet played a leading role in the conversion to OA. A workshop, which was held with representatives of the professional societies as part of the Open4DE project, showed that the interests and needs of the individual professional societies are also very different.  Last but not least, a representative body similar to the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies is missing here, which would bring these different interests under one roof. However, networking nodes such as the Open Access Network could play a strategically exposed role here. The future will show how feasible the already outlined ways of involving scientists in Germany are.

Literature

Open Science Coordination in Finnland, Federation of Finnished Learned Societies (2020). „Declaration for Open Science and Research (Finnland) 2020–2025.” Accessed June 7, 2022. https://edition.fi/tsv/catalog/view/79/29/192-1.

European Commission (2021). „Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Towards a reform of the research assessment system: scoping report.” Accessed June 7, 2022. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/707440.

European University Association asbl. (without year). „The EUA Open Science Agenda 2025.” Accessed June 7, 2022. https://eua.eu/downloads/publications/eua%20os%20agenda.pdf.

Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity. „Responsible conduct of research and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct in Finland. Guidelines of the Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity 2012.” Accessed June 7, 2022. https://tenk.fi/sites/tenk.fi/files/HTK_ohje_2012.pdf.

Ilva, Jyrki (2020). „Open access on the rise at Finnish universities“. Accessed June 7, 2022. https://blogs.helsinki.fi/thinkopen/oa-statistics-2019/.

National Open Science and Research Steering Group und Science and Research Steering Group (2020). „National Policy and Executive Plan by the Research Community in Finland for 2020–2025.“ Accessed June 7, 2022. https://avointiede.fi/sites/default/files/2020-03/openaccess2019.pdf.

Ministry of Education and Culture (2019). „Atlas of Open Science and Research in Finland 2019 Evaluation of openness in the activities of higher education institutions, research institutes, research-funding organisations, Finnish academic and cultural institutes abroad and learned societies and academies Final report.” Accessed June 7, 2022. https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/10024/161990. 

Morka, Agata and Gatti, Rupert (2021). „Finland“. In Academic Libraries and Open Access Books in Europe: A Landscape Study. PubPub. Accessed June 7, 2022.  https://doi.org/10.21428/785a6451.2da5044f.

Münch, Sybille (2016). „Interpretative Policy-Analyse: eine Einführung. Lehrbuch.” Wiesbaden, doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-03757-4.

Open Science and Research Coordination (2019). „Open Access to Scholarly Publications. National Policy and Executive Plan by the Research Community in Finland for 2020–2025 (1).” Accessed June 7, 2022. https://doi.org/10.23847/isbn.9789525995343.

Ministry of Education and Culture (2014). „Open science and research leads to surprising discoveries and creative insights: Open science and research roadmap 2014–2017.” Accessed June 7, 2022. https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/75210/okm21.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

Pölönen, Janne; Laakso, Mikael; Guns, Raf; Kulczycki, Emanuel and Sivertsen, Gunnar (2020). „Open access at the national level: A comprehensive analysis of publications by Finnish researchers“. In: Quantitative Science Studies, 17, 1–39. Accessed June 7, 2022.  https://doi.org/10/gg927d.

Open4DE Spotlight on Sweden: How a Bottom-up Open Access Strategy Works without a National Policy

Authors: Malte Dreyer, Martina Benz and Maike Neufend

Open Access (OA) is developing in an area of tension between institutional and funder policies, the economics of publishing and last but not least the communication practices of research disciplines. In a comparison across European countries, very dynamic and diverse approaches and developments can be observed. Furthermore, this international and comparative perspective helps us to assess the state of open access and open science (OA and OS) in Germany. In this series of Open4DE project blog posts, we will summarize what we have learned in our in-depth conversations with experts on developing and implementing nationwide Open Access strategies. We continue our series with a report on Sweden’s Open Access landscape.

The Nordic and Baltic countries of Europe are renown for having developed Open Access and Open Science (OA and OS) particularly well. Our spotlight on Lithuania at the beginning of this series made clear that committed policy-making is an important precondition for the successful implementation of OA and OS. Finland, too, has created a sophisticated system of various national policy papers on opening up research and teaching. The policy process in which they were developed is itself a tool to promote openness in science. We will report on Finland’s strategy in this series in the coming weeks.

Sweden differs from its Baltic neighbors as it has not established a nation-wide binding OA strategy through a policy paper or law. Nevertheless, Sweden has always been on a very good path towards the goal of opening up science. Sweden was one of the early adopters of transformative agreements and today can build on a broad acceptance of OA in the scientific community – despite the lack of a national policy. How can this be?

We wanted to explore what strategies Sweden is applying to make OA and OS a breakthrough and met Wilhelm Widmark to talk to him about the Swedish research ecosystem. Wilhelm Widmark is the director of the Stockholm University Library and has played an important role developing OA and OS at his own institution. He has also been involved for years in various national committees for the implementation of OA and OS: He is Vice-Chairman of the Swedish Bibsam Consortium and member of the Swedish Rectors Conference’s Open Science working group. Internationally, he was a member of the LIBER  Steering Board and a member of EUA’s Expert Group on Open Science. Since December 2021, he has also been a director of the EOSC Association.

The history of OA in Sweden

The history of OA in Sweden is characterized by very committed people, Wilhelm Widmark points out at the beginning of our conversation. Main drivers have always been enthusiasts who cared about the idea. One could therefore conclude that OA in Sweden has traditionally come from bottom-up. According to Wilhelm Widmark, it was indeed library directors who started it all, not the government. In their exchange forum, the SUHF Rectors Conference, they developed a recommendation in 2003 to deal more intensively with OA in the future, because they saw this topic coming. The already ongoing journal crisis gave a necessary impetus and lent the whole development an additional ideological dimension. In view of the constantly rising prices, it also became clear to the scientists that OA and OS has a value in itself. With the help of the libraries, they first tried to go the green way and started using repositories. However, it quickly became apparent that the workload on researchers was too high to achieve success this way. Only between 10% and 15% OA could be achieved with repository-based OA. Around 2015, therefore, the discussion about Gold OA also began to rise up in Sweden.

The plan to enable OA through negotiations with publishers led to discussions in the rectors conference. It quickly became clear that this form of negotiation could only take place with the involvement of university management. The network that emerged soon spanned the entire country. Today, there is a steering committee in which university rectors and people from the university administrations are represented in addition to the library directors. The National Library of Sweden, where the steering committee is located, plays a significant role in the transformation process, unlike in Germany, for example. The success of this model speaks for itself: Sweden is already one of the countries with the most transformation agreements. By 2026, more than 80% of publications are expected to appear in Gold OA through transformative deals.

The future of OA and OS in Sweden

The OA transformation is an ongoing process with changing goals. Wilhelm Widmark seems to get thoughtful at this point: “The question is when one can claim that a transformation is complete”, he remarks and points to upcoming challenges. These include the common search for alternatives to commercial publication service providers. An alternative to commercial OA could lie in the design of a publication platform. The times seem right for such projects: “Publishers really want to keep the transformative agreements as their business model. But the researchers are really annoyed of the high level of the publication fees” is how Wilhelm Widmark describes the current mood in his country. And in his view, the tested interaction between infrastructure providers and scientists will also be decisive for the next stage of the development: “The university management has the question on their table and the EU is our political driver. But it shouldn’t be organized top-down, it must be driven by researchers. The transformation is done for the researchers and thus the process must be created based on the needs of the researchers.” Under these conditions, the coordinating side needs to address the task of creating structures that promote and enable this cultural change.

Wilhelm Widmark believes that the involvement of all stakeholders is also necessary in those areas where he believes Sweden still has potential for development. Here he mentions, among other things, the topic of open data and especially the monitoring of opening processes in this area, investments in digital infrastructures, the promotion of citizen science or the topic of open educational resources. Furthermore, investments should not only be made in material resources, but also in skills. Universities in particular are called upon to provide competent support for researchers through data stewards and their own training programs. But the training of trainers must also be further professionalised and accredited: “We need a curriculum for data stewards and career paths for this staff. Not only the infrastructure is important, the skills are almost as important as the infrastructure,” Wilhelm Widmark is convinced.

Sweden and the National Policy Plan

The deep conviction that policy processes must be thought of from the implementation point of view and should be shaped by the players who are at the beginning of the scientific value chain corresponds to a critical attitude towards national policies. In contrast, a national OA and OS policy developed with all stakeholders, as is currently being discussed in Sweden, runs the risk of becoming self-serving and binding important capacities: “In the beginning the government wanted an OA and OS policy. The research council and the national library suggested a common OS policy together with the universities and the directors. But I am not sure if it is the right thing to do because it will take a long time and the work to be done is actually more important than the policy itself.”

What we can learn from Sweden

In our conversation, it becomes clear to us what maxims this openness-strategy follows: Prescriptions from above are avoided. Instead, common ground is identified through discussions with all participants and differences are not emphasized. In order to achieve goals that everyone considers desirable, the tools for their implementation are decided at each individual institution or organisation. In this way, specific needs can be addressed and researchers and educators have the opportunity to participate directly in these policy processes. On the last point, the Swedish strategy seems similar to the approach taken in Germany.

The price of this autonomy and particularism at the institutional level is a great heterogeneity of measures. Wilhelm Widmark sees this himself: “The national library compared all the different OA policies, and they are not aligned at all”. But he continues straight away: “Everything important happens at the universities. And of course the research field provides norms, but the researchers are not really interested in these norms but care about what is going on at their universities.” The benefit of such a strategy is that the discussion about OA and OS is kept alive. Perhaps this effect has also contributed to the fact that OA and OS have been met with such broad acceptance in Sweden.

Further Reading

Political Commitment toward Open Science: Open4DE Spotlight on the Open Access Landscape in France

Authors: Maike Neufend, Martina Benz, Malte Dreyer

Open access is developing in an area of tension between institutional and funder policies, the economics of publishing and last but not least the communication practices of research disciplines. In a comparison across European countries, very dynamic and diverse approaches and developments can be observed. Furthermore, this international and comparative perspective helps us to assess the state of open access (OA) in Germany. In this series of Open4DE project blog posts, we will summarize what we have learned in our in-depth conversations with experts on developing and implementing nationwide open access strategies.

The open access movement in France plays a vital role since the beginning in the European region. Already around the 2000s French research institutions launched the Revues.org platform (1999) – now OpenEdition – for open access journals primarily in Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2001 the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) started running HAL open archive (2001), a repository open to all disciplinary fields. In 2003 the CNRS signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. During many years open access was a matter of personal involvement from individuals within institutions, says Pierre Mounier, deputy director of OpenEdition and coordinator of OPERAS:

The personal commitment based on political values works locally, but at one point you reach a glass ceiling. You don’t get that general movement because it is only a matter of individuals. It really changed in France…

In 2021 France has already published the Second National Plan for Open Science. Generalising Open Science in France 2021-2024. And during the recently held Open Science European Conference (OSEC) the French Committee for Open Science presented the Paris Call on Research Assessment, calling for „an assessment system where research proposals, researchers, research units and research institutions are evaluated on the basis of their intrinsic merits and impact […]“. In line with the general development across Europe, according to the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and other policy papers, Open Science is no longer a question of few committed librarians, information scientists and researchers, but part of the national strategy on scholarly communication.

What can be achieved by a national strategy?

In Germany multiple stakeholders publish their own policies and strategies, committing to open access practices and values. Marin Dacos, national open science coordinator at the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, emphasizes that a national strategy is a strong signal no matter what, because multiple stakeholders receive concrete directions by such strategies. In addition, it might be more efficient to speak as a country regarding these issues, in particular at the international level, f.e. within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Commission and The Council for National Open Science Coordination (CoNOSC), a network of national coordinators in the UN-European region supported by SPARC Europe.

Looking at France, for certain topics national negotiations seem more convenient: Considering investment in green open access or diamond open access, it is more realistic to achieve progress on the national level instead of federal, local or institutional levels only. Setting open access on the national agenda allows for strategic planning. This argument is not only supported by the content of the two national plans for open science in France from 2018 and 2021, but also on the recently published Action Plan for Diamond Open Access „to further develop and expand a sustainable, community-driven Diamond OA scholarly communication ecosystem“. Prepared by OPERAS, PLAN S, Science Europe and French National Research Agency (ANR) the plan was commented by experts of a workshop sponsored by the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation in preparation for the OSEC conference. A summary of this conference and links to recordings are available online.

The National Plan and its infrastructure

But how did the first national plan actually come about in 2018? After the election in 2017, Frédérique Vidal became Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation. Since 2017 Marin Dacos is open science advisor to the director-general for research and innovation at the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. He has been highly involved in the writing process of the French Open Science Plan. The open science committee was founded in 2019, consisting of a steering committee of open science, a permanent secretariat for open science (SPSO), colleges and expert groups as well as the forum for open science.

The steering committee meets 3–4 times a year to make strategic decisions related to the national strategy, acts as the Council of Partners of the National Fund for Open Science (GIS FNSO) and decides which initiatives to fund. The permanent secretariat headed by the national coordinator for open science gathers monthly to prepare the work of the steering committee, and to ensure the implementation of its conclusions. It coordinates the work of the colleges of the open science committee, oversees the editorial board of the ouvrirlascience.fr website, and monitors the progress of ongoing projects for the operational implementation of the national open science policy. The colleges and expert groups are standing bodies composed of experts on various aspects of the national open science policy. They review issues, propose guidelines, issue opinions, and initiate and lead projects. The forum for open science supports the committee by bringing in the experience of professionals from academia and research institutions. It provides a space for dialogue, exchange and development of shared expertise. As Morka and Gatti point out, the open science committee is one of the „main platforms where librarians engage in discussions on open access“.

Moreover, in the French case, a national fund (Fonds National pour la Science Ouverte, FNSO) is in place since the first National Plan on Open Science (2018) funded by „ministerial allocations and voluntary contributions from institutions of higher education, research and innovation, as well as contributions from foundations and patrons“. Through this fund the steering committee for open science can incentivize concrete projects to foster implementation of measures articulated in the national plan, „it helps to target specific actions, an important transformation effect to help move forward“, says Mounier. 48 projects have been selected by the steering committee, 22 projects in 2019 mainly on research infrastructures, digital platforms and editorial initiatives and 26 projects in 2021 focusing on editorial platforms and structures as well as editorial content. Beside the fact that the fund is limited in its financial power, it is an important addition for a successful implementation of a national strategy.

What is there to consider for the German landscape?

One important lesson to learn from France refers to the administration of open access within the ministry. Open science and open access is highly coordinated inside the ministry and thus funds are not administered differently for these closely linked topics. However, the level of diversity included in the French national strategy is something to look up to. This is also visible in how the implementation of the national strategy is monitored in France. One aim of the French national open science strategy is the objective of a 100% open access rate in 2030 and progress is monitored on the national level. But different from the German Open Access Monitor the French version relies only on „using reliable and controlled open data“ like data from Unpaywall, DOAJ or OpenAPC – source databases like Web of Science or Scopus are not included. In addition, the French Open Science Monitor aims at including all scientific output and thus shows not only open access articles published in peer-reviewed journals but proceedings, book chapters, books and preprints as well. Sorting according to disciplines and their open access output is presented and the language of publication is shown as well. It is positive to see that both, the German and the French monitor, include diamond open access and thus differentiate it from full APC gold open access already.

But what works well in France is not necessarily the right path for Germany. University presses are well-developed in France, while the national publishing platform OpenEdition provides an infrastructure to publish open access books as well as journals. In Germany a decentralized library system operates quite autonomous on institutional levels, with different library consortia across federal states. A national publishing platform like OpenEdition may look like a desirable model, but as Pierre Mounier points out, does it really make sense for Germany? An important impulse from our interviews with French open science experts has been the question, how we can use the federated infrastructure in Germany as an advantage and not an obstacle for a national open access agenda.

References

(2017). „Jussieu Call for Open Science and Bibliodiversity.“ Accessed April 6, 2022. https://jussieucall.org/jussieu-call/.

Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche  et de l’Innovation (2018). „National Plan for Open Science.“ Accessed April 6, 2022. https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/National-Plan-for-Open-Science_A4_20180704.pdf.

Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche  et de l’Innovation (2021). „Second National Plan for Open Science Generalising Open Science in France 2021-2024.“ Accessed April 6, 2022. https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/second-national-plan-for-open-science/,

Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation (2022). „Paris Call on Research Assessment.“ Accessed April 6, 2022. https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/paris-call-on-research-assessment.

Ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation (2022). „Action Plan for Diamond open access.“ Accessed April 6, 2022. https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/action-plan-for-diamond-open-access-2.

Mounier, Pierre (2019). „From Open Access as a Movement to Open Science as a Policy.“ Presented at the 2019 2nd AEUP Conference: (Re-)Shaping University Presses and Institutional Publishing. Profiles – Challenges – Benefits, Brno, Czech Republic, October 3. Accessed April 6, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3471026.

Morka, Agata, and Rupert Gatti (2021). „France.“ In Academic Libraries and Open Access Books in Europe: A Landscape Study. PubPub. Accessed April 6, 2022. https://doi.org/10.21428/785a6451.6df6495e.

Open4DE Spotlight on the Open Access Landscape in Lithuania

Authors: Malte Dreyer, Maike Neufend and Martina Benz

Open Access is developing in an area of tension between institutional and funder policies, the economics of publishing and last but not least the communication practices of research disciplines. In a comparison across European countries, very dynamic and diverse approaches and developments can be observed. Furthermore, this international and comparative perspective helps us to assess the state of Open Access (OA) in Germany. In this series of Open4DE project blog posts, we will summarize what we have learned in our in-depth conversations with experts on developing and implementing nationwide Open Access strategies.

We start our series with a report on Lithuania’s Open Access landscape.

Probably the most important document for the development of Open Access in Lithuania is the Resolution Regarding the Approval of the Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Data, published in 2016. Because of its remarkable concreteness, the resolution is, together with the French National Plan on Open Science, described as „the most high level [policy document] of all“ in the 2019 SPARC Europe Report (Sveinsdottir, T. et al. 2020, S. 30). For example, the openness of data is made a standard (§23), concrete responsibilities for the implementation and monitoring of measures are named (§20, §29) and reporting obligations are regulated (§26).

Additionally, the Law on Higher Education and Research of the Republic of Lithuania states that „in order to ensure the quality of research conducted with funds from the state budget, to ensure transparency in the use of funds from the state budget and to promote scientific progress, the results of all research conducted in state higher education and research institutions must be disclosed publicly […]” (Article 51).

In an interview with Ieva Ceseviciute, we asked her about the state of an Open Access policy in Lithuania and whether she could confirm our optimistic view of things from a domestic perspective. Ieva Ceseviciute is Head of Research Information Services at the Library at Kaunas University of Technology and has been instrumental in OpenAIRE since 2015. In addition, she is involved in the Research Data Alliance and is thus an expert on Open Science in Lithuania.

Ieva Ceseviciute sees a general problem in the fact that so far no mechanisms have yet been developed to enforce the Resolution Regarding the Approval of the Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Data which has been released by the Research Council of Lithuania in 2016. It should also be noted that this resolution is the guideline of the most important research funding body and not an overarching national policy. However, there is agreement in Lithuania that this policy needs to be revised and adapted to the more recent developments in the publication system. Moreover, it is broadly recognised in Lithuania that a national policy is important and desirable. This situation was a good opportunity for putting a national policy process on the agenda.

Hence the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports has established a task force whose purpose is to develop a national Open Access policy. The group was formed in 2019, and started its work in 2020 with a series of meetings, but was then interrupted by the pandemic and the recent change of government in Lithuania. Currently, The Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Data are being revised by the Research Council of Lithuania. In support of this discussion, a survey of the present state is seen as a mandatory precondition for future strategy proposals. In particular, surveys have been carried out among various stakeholders and the research offices of relevant institutions in order to determine the development statuses and needs.

What can we learn from Lithuania?

In Ieva Ceseviciute’s view, the biggest obstacle on the way to a culture of openness is the fact that OA has not been integrated into incentive systems, which makes it unattractive to comply with Open Acess policies. Researchers are not yet expected to publish OA in the national context; changing this requires profound cultural change and new publishing practices. So far, few researchers have understood that the standards of Open Science and OA offer advantages to them. Although numerous information events are organised, raising awareness on Open Access has proven to be a challenge. A national policy can be an important instrument here. “Change takes time – cultural change takes time, it is not possible without the instrument of policies” says Ieva Ceseviciute.

At the same time, it is important that OA is based on a strong mandate in the ongoing national policy process. This requires a good balance between incentives and sanctions. Among the drivers of OA in Lithuania, Ieva Ceseviciute lists the support measures and legal frameworks of the European Union. In Lithuania, researchers are often involved in European research contexts that are particularly committed to the idea of openness. This is one of the ways how an intrinsic interest in Open Science is generated.

Further strong guidelines would certainly be helpful here. Top-down guidelines can accelerate cultural change in the national community. In this context, it is very important, says Ieva Ceseviciute, to identify stakeholders and name responsibilities – for every single step and measure in the policy process: „If this is not part of your policy, your policy won’t work“.

References

Dovidonyte, Rasa (2019). Implementation of Open Science in Lithuania. Nordic Perspectives on Open Science, August. https://doi.org/10.7557/11.4828

Sveinsdottir, Thordis, Proudman, Vanessa, & Davidson, Joy (2020). An Analysis of Open Science Policies in Europe, v6. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4005612