Gaps between Open Science activities and actual recognition systems: Insights from an international survey

Abstract

There are global movements aiming to promote reform of the traditional research evaluation and reward systems. However, a comprehensive picture of the existing best practices and efforts across various institutions to integrate Open Science into these frameworks remains underdeveloped and not fully known. The aim of this study was to identify perceptions and expectations of various research communities worldwide regarding how Open Science activities are (or should be) formally recognised and rewarded. To achieve this, a global survey was conducted in the framework of the Research Data Alliance, recruiting participants from five continents and 37 countries. Despite most participants reporting that their organisation had one form or another of formal Open Science policies, the majority indicated that their organisation lacks any initiative or tool that provides specific credits or rewards for Open Science activities. For instance, researchers from France, the United States, the Netherlands and Finland affirmed having such mechanisms in place. The study found that, among various Open Science activities, Open or FAIR data management and sharing stood out as especially deserving of explicit recognition and credit. Open Science indicators in research evaluation and/or career progression processes emerged as the most preferred type of reward.

Are Open Science instructions targeted to ecologists and evolutionary biologists sufficient? A literature review of guidelines and journal data policies

“…A majority of the issues mentioned in the guideline articles slowing or hindering the use of OS for Ecol Evol researchers were disincentives, such as cost of open access, no formal merit of sharing data or methods, or problems to guarantee reliability and reproducibility. A recent study reported that even though organisations often have OS policies, they rarely have tools to reward scientists about OS activities (Grattarola et al., 2024 ). There clearly is a need for a culture shift towards OS.…”

“…Especially important for OS practices becoming the new normal would be to provide clear merit for researchers advocating OS (seeGrattarola et al, 2024). This needs recognition from different entities such as scientific societies (e.g.…”