Open Access

Open Science is the cultural movement that aims to open scientific knowledge to society. It also refers to the set of practices designed to accomplish this goal. Making science open means encouraging scientific progress in a faster and more transparent way, enhancing the quality of research.

According to the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science of 2021, Open Science is:

• Sharing knowledge: not only science results, but also collected data and practices carried out during scientific research, as well as educational resources, software and hardware specifications. The underlying principle is “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”: privacy, legitimate interest and security matters must be considered
• Making physical and virtual infrastructures open
• Improving science communication
• Letting science be known by the members of society outside the scientific community
• Building an open dialogue between different cultures

Open Access is part of Open Science and one of its main practices. It promotes the openness of research results without cost barriers and without most copyright restrictions, always giving appropriate attribution of authorship.

Open Science and Open Access are key points for European and international funding institutions and are required to be put into practice in the entire research workflow.

Open Research Data, as well as Open Access, is part of Open Science: its main goal is to make research data - the information used and produced during the research process – open. Because of the variety and complexity of research data, it is necessary to adopt Research Data Management practices – including writing Data Management Plans - during the whole research process, following the FAIR principles. These principles are recommendations meant to guide to correct practices of Research Data Management, aiming to make research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

Source: UNESCO (2022). Understanding open science — Factsheet — SC-PBS-STIP/2022/OST/1. Paris, France: UNESCO