Open science has been steadily gaining pace in academic institutions around the world, driven by new policies that are being implemented at both national and local level. These policies are often facilitated by the research libraries of these academic institutions – research libraries and their librarians are important gateways to research dissemination both within and beyond the research community.
However, there are still some barriers to fully embracing all the principles of open research, from researchers still being unaware of the movement to research libraries lacking the tools to educate researchers on the movement.
To help overcome these challenges, LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries) has partnered with Open Research Europe since its launch, aiming to support the advancement of open science and the development of research infrastructure, as well as the sustainability of the platform.
In this blog, we look at some of the ways open access publishers like Open Research Europe can collaborate with research libraries to drive forward open research practices, with insights from this year’s LIBER Annual Conference.
Open & Trusted: Reassessing Research Library Values
This year’s LIBER Annual Conference, with the theme Open and Trusted: Reassessing Research Library Values, played host to a number of sessions aiming to highlight the role of libraries in open research. This included a pre-conference workshop hosted by Open Research Europe’s Publishing Executive, Georgina Durowoju.
Open Research Europe attended the LIBER Annual Conference, held at the Central European University in Budapest from the 5th to the 7th of July 2023. With over 400 attendees, the conference served as a venue for individuals within the scholarly publishing ecosystem, including library professionals, to collaborate, network, and learn about ongoing initiatives to drive academic research dissemination forward.
The aim of the Open Research Europe’s workshop was to discuss the principles of open science, highlighting those that are championed by ORE; provide attendees with a thorough overview of the platform; and to introduce and discuss the newly established Open Research Europe Librarian Advisory Group.
Open Research Europe Librarian Advisory Group
The group, established in the summer of 2023 in collaboration with LIBER, serves as a space for Open Research Europe and the research library community to share knowledge, bolster uptake of Open Research Europe, and drive the open research movement forward.
The ultimate role of the Librarian Advisory Group is to provide valuable contributions to the functionality and sustainability of the platform, discuss ways that we can foster and nurture collaboration with institutional librarians to improve research sharing practices, and identify how best to engage audiences about the importance of open research.
To date, the group has over 20 members from libraries across Europe with expertise spanning library directors and open access advisors to communication officer, who are all motivated to contribute to the success of Open Research Europe and open research more widely.
“Projects like Open Research Europe are very important to changing the landscape of academic publishing and helping to drive forward open research practices. It’s vital that we collaborate across the academic community to foster uptake of these practices, and to support initiatives like Open Research Europe.”
Julien Roche, LIBER President and Director of Libraries & Learning at University of Lille
Sharing knowledge between open access publishers and research librarians
A major part of the session was a productive group discussion with attendees to understand how research libraries can be more involved in the promotion of open science practices within their communities, and how best Open Research Europe can help librarians with such promotion.
The discussion was very positive, and attendees gave diverse perspectives on the why and how of increasingly incorporating open science principles into libraries.
The who and the how of open science dissemination
The importance of introducing Early Career Researchers to open science principles as early as possible became apparent, as this unique group of researchers are the policymakers, academics, and disseminators of the future. This will ensure the sustainability of the movement and could increase its reach.
Showcasing open research benefits and barriers to uptake
In order open research to appeal to researchers, regardless of career stage, it’s important to emphasize the benefits.
Conducting research with integrity, and sharing aspects of this research openly (in addition to accompanying data), will result in an increase of visibility for researchers and their work, which in turn should increase the likelihood of securing research funding and also the possibility of collaborating with other researchers.
In contrast, we also discussed what could cause researchers to be reluctant to incorporate open science principles into their research practices. The consensus was that this could be caused by fears some have associated with the movement – some researchers may feel publishing their work on open access platforms leaves them susceptible to research theft or plagiarism.
However, there are mechanisms in place to ensure that retention rights of researchers are protected when they publish on open access platforms. All content on Open Research Europe is licensed under CC BY licenses, which is a legal mechanism to enable the open access distribution of materials while safeguarding IP for authors and setting the terms of reuse.
So, it is important to alleviate these fears by educating researchers on how they are protected.
Also, we discussed why it is necessary to contextualize the specific needs of each research field to the conversation of open research, to better disseminate how these principles can benefit each research area differently.
Roadmaps for the future
To assist communities that are committed to being involved in open research practices but are unsure of how they can progress, a very constructive suggestion was that such groups could build “roadmaps” that describe their current position and what needs to be done to get to their ultimate goal of open science.
However, it is important to consider differences in capabilities to be involved with open science for specific regions in terms of infrastructure and research cultures that could hinder such advances.
Citizen science
Lastly, the importance of citizen science initiatives, like the Research Spotlight blog series on Open Research Europe, was emphasized in the session.
Such initiatives are helpful in introducing the concept of open research to the wider public but also useful to researchers, giving them the opportunity to introduce their research an audience beyond their peers.
Open Research Europe: setting an example
All of the attendees of the session agreed that Open Research Europe is a platform that incorporates all of the features that an open science platform should have:
- Transparency at every research step
- Open peer review
- A commitment to thoroughness and research integrity
- And a connection to research assessment reforms such as the Coalition of Advancing Research Assessment.
Open Research Europe will be a part of the LIBER Winter Event, to be held in Florence, Italy from the 23rd – 24th November 2023. To learn more about the event, programme and registration, visit the event website here.
