Roadmap for Open Science lays out path to maximizing impact of federal research

Canada's Chief Science Advisor has delivered a roadmap to guide the widespread adoption of open science within the federal government, outlining a set of principles and recommendations to ensure federal science is readily and easily available to the public. The move makes Canada part of a global movement that advocates say helps maximize the impact of public investment in science.

"Open Science accelerates science and innovation by enabling others to build on existing research, it also fosters quality and integrity in research by offering an opportunity for wider evaluation and scrutiny,” said Dr. Mona Nemer at the Colleges and Institutes Canada Student Showcase last Wednesday in Ottawa. “Last but not least, open science allows us to build synergies with our international colleagues and to help to shape a global vision for science for the future.“

The Roadmap for Open Science specifically applies to scientific and research outputs funded by federal government departments and agencies. Its key recommendation is a common, phased approach to implementing open science across science-based departments and agencies (SBDAs), starting by making all federal research articles openly accessible without an embargo period beginning in January 2022. This recommendation aligns with and goes further than the Tri-Agencies' policy requiring peer-reviewed journal articles arising from Agency-supported research be freely accessible within 12 months of publication.

The Roadmap also addresses scientific and research data, calling on federal departments and agencies to implement "FAIR" principles by January 2025 to ensure data are not only open, but also findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.

In the long term, the Roadmap calls for harmonization of open science within Canada and abroad. Specifically, it proposes the creation of an Open Science Steering Committee to oversee the implementation of open science within the federal government, the development of an open-science strategy for research conducted outside of SBDAs, and close monitoring of new developments internationally.

As an immediate next step, the Chief Science Advisor will establish a task force to identify criteria for keeping research and its outputs confidential or closed, noting that open science must respect privacy, security and appropriate intellectual property rights. Dr. Nemer stressed that “science should be as open as possible and as closed as necessary.”

"The Roadmap makes several important recommendations towards making science 'Open by Default and Design,' many of which align well with our recommended goals for open science," said Kimberly Girling, Interim Executive Director of Evidence for Democracy, in an email to RE$EARCH MONEY. "The timelines are also ambitious, signalling the government’s willingness to move forward quickly."

Girling highlighted the call for the creation of departmental open science action plans by the end of 2020. These will be important to watch, she said. "The recommendations are still high level at this point. Real changes will occur as the action plans develop across federal departments and agencies."

The Roadmap is part of the 2018-2020 National Action Plan on Open Government, and the first annual report, monitoring federal progress toward open science was published in 2019. (Key results are presented in Table 1.)  The report concluded there are significant opportunities for progress and stressed the need to better understand the incentives and barriers that impact federal open science.

Table: Key results from the Federal Progress in Implementing Open Science: 2019 Annual Report

R$