Image by papagnoc from Pixabay
Journal of Science Policy & Governance | Volume 18, Issue 01 | March 24, 2021

Policy Memo: Open Science in Spain: Towards a Coordinated Strategy
To: Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation

J.P. Manzano-Patrón (1,2), Isabel López-Neira (1), Pablo Izquierdo (1,3)
  1. Department of Science Policy, Society of Spanish Researchers in the United Kingdom (SRUK)
  2. Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, Faculty of Medicine, University of Nottingham
  3. Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, University College London

Corresponding address: sciencepolicy@sruk.org.uk
Download PDF
https://doi.org/10.38126/JSPG180108
Keywords: open science; open access; reproducibility; standardization; Spain
Executive Summary: Research is being transformed by transparency, collaboration, public engagement and shareability, which are key elements of the Open Science (OS) movement. Open Access (OA), one of its main areas of action, aims to make all research freely available. Benefits of OA have already triggered a shift toward its implementation at the European and international level, with funders creating new platforms to support an ecosystem of open publications and data. Despite remarkable early contributions by Spain in terms of OS pilot initiatives and specifically OA publication performance, the latter has declined by more than a third since 2016. Moreover, no new indicators have been put forward since, even though openness remains to be deemed a strength. In this policy memo, we examine policy options to support OS in the country, with a focus on OA. These could be structured by a National Strategy for Openness, including actions to ensure OA for all publicly funded research, standardization of procedures, and the re-design of assessment criteria to incorporate reproducibility of outputs, knowledge dissemination and transfer.

-Read the full article through download.-
Download PDF

References

  1. Ali-Khan, S. E., Jean, A. and Gold, E. R. 2018. “Identifying the Challenges in Implementing Open Science.” MNI Open Research 2 (October): 5. https://doi.org/10.12688/mniopenres.12805.1.
  2. Allen, C. and Mehler, D.M.A. 2019. “Open Science Challenges, Benefits and Tips in Early Career and Beyond.” PLOS Biology 17 (5): e3000246. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000246.
  3. Anglada i de Ferrer, L.M., Gonzalez Copeiro del Villar, C., Rico-Castro, P., Abadal Falgueras, E., Bernal Martinez, I., Besson Ribas, C. et al. 2014. “Recommendations for the Implementation of Article 37 of the Spanish Science,Technology and Innovation Act: Open Access Dissemination.” https://www.recolecta.fecyt.es/sites/default/files/contenido/documentos/Implantacion_Art37_AccesoAbierto_INGLES.pdf.
  4. Baker, M. 2016. “1,500 Scientists Lift the Lid on Reproducibility.” Nature 533 (7604): pp. 452–54. https://doi.org/10.1038/533452a.
  5. Brembs, B, Button, K. and Munafò, M. 2013. “Deep Impact: Unintended Consequences of Journal Rank.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7: 291. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00291.
  6. Casadevall, A. and Fang, F.C. 2014. “Causes for the Persistence of Impact Factor Mania.” MBio 5 (2): e00064-14. https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00064-14.
  7. Coalition S. “Accelerating the Transition to Full and Immediate Open Access to Scientific Publications.” https://www.coalition-s.org/wp-content/uploads/PlanS_Principles_and_Implementation_310519.pdf.
  8. DANS, The Young Academy, DTL, GO FAIR, KB, KNAW, LCRDM, et al. 2019. “National Plan Open Science.” https://www.openscience.nl/files/openscience/2019-02/nationalplanopenscience_en.pdf.
  9. Else, H. 2019. “Elsevier Strikes Its First National Deal with Large Open-Access Element.” Nature, April. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01349-6.
  10. European Commission. 2016. “Open Innovation, Open Science, Open to the World - a Vision for Europe.” https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/open-innovation-open-science-open-world-vision-europe.
  11. European Commission. 2018. “European Commission Digital Strategy.” https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/strategy/decision-making_process/documents/ec_digitalstrategy_en.pdf.
  12. European Commission. 2019. “€2 Billion to Fast Forward the Creation of the European Innovation Council.” https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_1694.
  13. European Commission .2020a. “Open Source Software Strategy 2020–2023.” https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/en_ec_open_source_strategy_2020-2023.pdf.
  14. European Commission. 2020b. “Science, Research and Innovation Performance of the EU 2020. A Fair, Green and Digital Europe.” https://doi.org/10.2777/890488.
  15. “European Data Portal.” https://www.europeandataportal.eu/en.
  16. French Government. 2018. “National Plan for Open Science.” https://libereurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/SO_A4_2018_05-EN_print.pdf.
  17. Friesike, S., Widenmayer, B., Gassmann, O. and Schildhauer, T. 2015. “Opening Science: Towards an Agenda of Open Science in Academia and Industry.” The Journal of Technology Transfer 40 (4): pp. 581–601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-014-9375-6.
  18. Hicks, D., Wouters, P., Waltman, L., de Rijcke, S. and Rafols, I.. 2015. “Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics.” Nature. https://www.nature.com/news/bibliometrics-the-leiden-manifes to-for-research-metrics-1.17351.
  19. Hook, D., Hahnel, M. and Calvert, I. 2019. “The Ascent of Open Access." https://doi.org/10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.7618751.V2.
  20. Knoema. “Spain Number of scientific and technical journal articles, 1960-2020.” https://knoema.com/atlas/Spain/Number-of-scientific-journal-articles.
  21. Leipzig​, J., Nüst, D., Tapley Hoyt, C., Soiland-Reyes, S., Ram, K. and Greenberg, J. “The Role of Metadata in Reproducible Computational Research.” https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2006/2006.08589.pdf.
  22. Martínez-Galindo, F.J., Rubio, F., Hernández-San-Miguel, J. and Fernández Burguete, S. 2019. “Plan S: Challenges and Opportunities in Spain.” Insights 32 (1). https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.467.
  23. Moher, D., Naudet, F., Cristea, I.A., Miedema, F., Ioannidis, J.P.A. and Goodman, S.N. 2018. “Assessing Scientists for Hiring, Promotion, and Tenure.” PLOS Biology 16 (3): e2004089. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2004089.
  24. Mora Mas, F., Ariño, L.A., Casal, M., Gomez, J., Gonzalez, A., Gonzalez, A. et al. 2019. “Compromisos de Las Universidades Ante La Open Science.” https://www.crue.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/2019.02.20-Compromisos-CRUE_OPENSCIENCE-VF.pdf.
  25. Nature. 2018. “Checklists Work to Improve Science.” Nature 556 (7701): pp. 273–74. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-04590-7.
  26. Nature “Reporting Standards and Availability of Data, Materials, Code and Protocols.” https://www.nature.com/nature-research/editorial-policies/reporting-standards.
  27. Obels, P., Lakens, D., Col es, N.A., Gottfried, J. and Green, S.A. 2020. “Analysis of Open Data and Computational Reproducibility in Registered Reports in Psychology.” Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science 3 (2): pp. 229–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245920918872.
  28. Organization for Human Brain Mapping. “Replication Award.” https://www.humanbrainmapping.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageID=3731&activateFull=true.
  29. Rico-Castro, P. and Valeria Bonora, L. 2020. “OA Publications in Spain over Time.” 2020. https://www.openaire.eu/os-spain.
  30. Royal Society. “Replication Studies.” https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/replication-studies.
  31. Salkind, N. J. 2010. “Encyclopedia of research design.” Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412961288.
  32. Society of Spanish Researchers in the UK (SRUK). 2020.“Por un país innovador.” https://sruk.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Por-Un-País-Innovador-Informe-completo.pdf.
  33. Spanish Government. 2011. Ley 14/2011, de 1 de Junio, de La Ciencia, La Tecnología y La Innovación. https://www.boe.es/eli/es/l/2011/06/01/14/con.
  34. Spanish Government.. 2017. “Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2017-2020.” https://www.ciencia.gob.es/stfls/MICINN/Prensa/FICHEROS/2018/PlanEstatalIDI.pdf.
  35. Spanish Government.. 2018. “Revistas Depredadoras En Las Publicaciones En Acceso Abierto (Open Access).” https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.21640.
  36. Spanish Government.. 2020. “Estrategia Española de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación 2021-2027.” https://www.ciencia.gob.es/stfls/MICINN/Ministerio/FICHEROS/EECTI-2021-2027.pdf.
  37. Stark, P.B. 2018. “Before Reproducibility Must Come Preproducibility.” Nature 557 (7707): pp. 613–613. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05256-0.
  38. Suber, P. 2012. “Open Access.” MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/open-access.
  39. Swan, A. 2010. “The Open Access Citation Advantage. Studies and Results to Date.” http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/268516.
  40. Tacke, O. 2010. “Open Science 2.0: How Research and Education Can Benefit from Open Innovation and Web 2.0.” pp. 37–48. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14481-3_4.“The European Cloud Initiative.” https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/european-cloud-initiative.
  41. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). 2020. “Open Access Block Grant Awards.” https://www.ukri.org/about-us/policies-standards-and-data/data-collection/open-access-block-grant-awards/.
  42. Vicente-Saez, R. and Martinez-Fuentes, C. 2018. “Open Science Now: A Systematic Literature Review for an Integrated Definition.” Journal of Business Research 88 (July): pp. 428–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JBUSRES.201 7.12.043.
  43. Wilkinson, M.D., Dumontier, M., Aalbersberg, I.J., Appleton, G., Axton, M., Baak, A. et al. 2016. “The FAIR Guiding Principles for Scientific Data Management and Stewardship.” Scientific Data 3 (1): 160018. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18.
  44. Woelfle, M., Olliaro, P. and Todd, M.H. 2011. “Open Science Is a Research Accelerator.” Nature Chemistry 3 (10): pp. 745–48. https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1149.
  45. Wouters, P., Rafols, I., Oancea, A., Lynn Karmerlin, S.C., Holbrook, J.B. and Jacob, M. 2019. “Indicator Frameworks for Fostering Open Knowledge Practices in Science and Scholarship.” https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/b69944d4-01f3-11ea-8c1f-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-108756824.
  46. Wuchty, S., Jones, B.F. and Uzzi, B. 2007. “The Increasing Dominance of Teams in Production of Knowledge.” Science Vol. 316, Issue 5827, pp. 1036-1039. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1136099
J.P. Manzano-Patrón is currently doing a PhD in Computational Neuroscience & AI at the University of Nottingham and is a member of the Science Policy committee at the Society of Spanish Researchers in the UK (SRUK). He is actively involved in Open Science and the dissemination of scientific knowledge initiatives, such as in the Brainhack community.
 
Isabel López-Neira holds an M.S. in Science, Technology and Society from University College London (UCL). She has explored questions of fairness linked to technology and innovation while researching at UCL’s Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP). Isabel is a member of the Science Policy committee at SRUK.
 
Pablo Izquierdo is a 4th year graduate student in the Wellcome Trust Neuroscience program at University College London. He holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a M.S. in Neuroscience from University College London. He works as a science communicator and serves as Director of Science Policy at SRUK.
 
Acknowledgements
The policy options outlined expand on SRUK’s recent analysis “Por un país innovador” (“For an innovative country”). The authors thank all other contributors and independent experts for their valuable input.
DISCLAIMER: The findings and conclusions published herein are solely attributed to the author and not necessarily endorsed or adopted by the Journal of Science Policy and Governance. Articles are distributed in compliance with copyright and trademark agreements.

ISSN 2372-2193
© 2022 Journal of Science Policy & Governance, Inc. All rights reserved. The opinions, findings and conclusions from JSPG publications, additional article commentaries and related events do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal.