How far along are we on the journey towards Open Science?

First, let's try to situate what is actually intended by "Open Science". According to the European Commission, "Open science is an approach to research based on open cooperative work that emphasizes the sharing of knowledge, results and tools as early and widely as possible" and "it operates on the principle of being ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’". Similarly, UNESCO defines Open science as "a set of principles and practices that aim to make scientific research from all fields accessible to everyone for the benefits of scientists and society as a whole. Open science is about making sure not only that scientific knowledge is accessible but also that the production of that knowledge itself is inclusive, equitable and sustainable." [2]. Overall, it is fair to say that these two definitions by the European Commission and UNESCO are conceptually similar and point in the same direction. But as you can see, they are not strictly the same and, when even the most abstract definitions are not fully aligned, their practical implementation will inevitably be more tumultuous.

At the Institute for Applied Linguistics (IAL), we have been interested in developing and implementing Open Science for more than a decade, even before it was widely promoted by international institutions. We did so because we could see how Open Science was naturally aligned with IAL's research mentality, how it could enhance its inner workings and how it could sustain its international growth, thus achieving multiple added values simultaneously.

One would think that after a decade of efforts in a specific context (i.e., Applied Linguistics), numerous milestones reached, several projects completed, and even awards won, the question would be pretty well figured out at this point, right? Well... No. Like I often tell PhD students starting their own journey into the research world: there are no easy-to-solve subjects in research; if there were, they would already have been solved and we wouldn't be discussing it. Open Science is a perfect example.

Let me tell you about an ongoing effort of ours that nicely showed us how far we still have to go before reaching our destination. Eurac Research is now actively promoting the use of Data Management Plans, which are documents meant to lay out clearly how data will be managed in projects. It is also a very nice tool to spot unexpected disagreements or concepts that are not yet fully shared among partners. Surprisingly, when devising our own Data Management Plans, we quickly understood that we do not even have a shared definition of what "data" actually means. For some of us, it is almost entirely digital files (e.g., sets of online news articles); for others, it also includes some physical artefacts (e.g., text written by language learners); and for others, it even includes ephemeral aspects (e.g., observations made by a researcher during a live experiment). And obviously, if we cannot agree on what counts as data, managing it in an Open Science framework becomes far more difficult. Metaphorically speaking, we thought we were well-trained for running the Open Science marathon but discovered that our walking technique needs a serious upgrade.

So, to conclude and answer the question "How far are we in the journey towards Open Science?", I can only say that we have come a long way on the question over the past decade. This is clearly visible in our everyday working life: more people are receptive to the idea, many institutions actively support it, some conferences welcome work on it, among other signs of change. In my opinion, we certainly have a decade's worth of effort ahead of us before we reach any destination we could feel satisfied with. And a decade is definitely not a trivial amount of time. But as a fellow IAL colleague of mine put it nicely as he was recently presenting IAL's data repository(which, by the way, is a central element in IAL's Open Science strategy): “Creating a new implementation of an approach will contribute to advancing research for several months. Creating a new approach will contribute to advancing research for several years. Creating a new research practice will contribute to advancing research for several decades". So, even if the journey of Open Science research practices is long and tumultuous, it is certainly worth the effort.

Last but not least, if you have questions about Open Science or other subjects we know a few things about (e.g. natural language processing, large language models), our team at the IAL holds a weekly helpdesk to provide consultancy and support for fellow researchers and/or innovators. If that interests you, feel free to reach out, and I'll loop you in.