News item | 29-03-2023 | 12:00
Scientific research that is freely accessible and available stimulates the dialogue between researchers, teachers and citizens. Open collaboration can also lead to faster scientific breakthroughs, innovations and major social impact. With the establishment of the independent Directing Body Open Science NL, Minister Dijkgraaf of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science wants to accelerate the development of Open Science and ensure that it becomes the norm in the Netherlands. The cabinet has previously announced that it will make a total of €184 million available for this over the next ten years. Today, fifteen knowledge institutions and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science signed the covenant to accelerate the transition to Open Science.
Open science breaks through barriers and ensures that the many forms of scientific knowledge are openly available, accessible and reusable. This is also important in principle, because research that is financed with public funds should be available to society.
Minister Dijkgraaf: ‘Knowledge is still too often behind a paywall or scientific data is not made available. Research results should be freely available to everyone! Only then can we show what science does, but we can also tackle the challenges of our time together‘.
open science
Science, society and the business community benefit from open science, because open collaboration can lead to faster scientific breakthroughs, innovations and greater social impact. Because researchers are transparent about their methods and data used, science as a whole becomes more accessible and verifiable. This improves confidence in science and improves the connection between scientists and society.
Signing agreement
Today, various parties signed a covenant in which they agree to also collaborate at a national level to accelerate the transition to open science. This collaboration will take shape via a temporary coordinating body (Open Science NL) that will be placed with NWO for organizational purposes. The governing body will distribute the €184 million up to and including 2031. Open Science NL has been officially launched with the signing of the covenant. The covenant has been signed by the open science partners NWO, UNL, NFU, VH, SURF, KNAW, NWO-I, ZonMw, UKB, KB, DANS, Netherlands eScience Center, 4TUResearchData, Health-RI and SHB.
Open Science NL
Open Science NL has the added value that all parties involved hereby record their joint commitment to open science. This is important, because the transition will largely be realized by the organizations involved themselves, with Open Science NL playing an important facilitating and driving role. The organizations themselves will continue to embed open science in their own organisations. With the extra funding via Open Science NL, projects can be financed that cannot be supported directly by an individual institution, have a cross-institutional scope or for which start-up funding is currently still lacking. All parties involved then benefit from those projects and the subsequent knowledge sharing.