Principles

Au regard du « Document de Politique de la Recherche Scientifique » (2021) en RDC et à propos de la topographie sur la pratique de Open Science, il y a du chemin à faire malgré quelques initiatives locales isolées. Le Centre de Recherche « CREPARENIT » de l’Université de Kinshasa en partenariat avec OSCN (Nigeria) et OpenScienceAfrica ont formulé le voeu de former des experts certifiés en SO. La démarche s’inscrit dans la perspective de mise en oeuvre de la « Recommandation de l’Unesco (2021) en RDC et la vulgarisation des Principes OSMI (2025).

OSMI’s work has attracted considerable and sustained interest in Finland. The OSMI Principles provide an important global framework that supports our local monitoring development. OSMI and its work are actively promoted to the Finnish open science community.

In Finland, both international and national policies, as well as examples of monitoring, were used in developing the national monitoring model. A new national open science and research monitoring framework was approved in 2022 and carried out in 2022 and in 2024. Staying informed about international developments has been an integral task in ensuring that national monitoring remains up to date. As part of this work, the Secretariat for the National Open Science and Research Coordination has published regular updates on the Open Science Monitoring Initiative (OSMI) on the Openscience.fi news section.

OSMI was introduced on our website in March 2025 as an interesting new global initiative developing a common framework for open science monitoring. The article also described OSMI’s goals, introduced its four working groups (WGs), and encouraged readers to follow OSMI by subscribing to its newsletter or following it on social media.

In August the OSMI Principles, released in July, were introduced to the Finnish open science community. This article explained the three pillars: relevance and significance; transparency and reproducibility; and self-assessment and responsible use. Also, it provided an overview of the ongoing work in the WGs and promoted the possibility to join the groups. The article also reflected on how the Principles and outputs of the WGs could be used in the development of Finnish national monitoring.

In September, we were pleased to announce that the Finnish translation of the Principles was ready. With kind help from Laetitia Bracco, member of the OSMI Coordination Committee, the Finnish version was formatted to match the other language versions and added to the Principles publication record in Zenodo. Finnish was one of the first additional languages after the English original, added together with German and Spanish after the French version.

Another important milestone in September was analysing how the national monitoring model aligns with the OSMI Principles. The analysis shows that Finnish monitoring is almost fully aligned with each individual principle. At the same time, areas for development were identified. Case studies need to be included, and a more in-depth self-evaluation of national monitoring should be conducted once OSMI has released further information on how that should be carried out. This article is available in English, link. Information on OSMI was also added to the permanent page that describes international statements under the Policies & Materials section on Openscience.fi, link.

In October, the OSMI Principles were included in the first issue of a new series discussing international developments in responsible science, published on the Responsible Research website.

The Finnish national monitoring model is currently under further development by the working group appointed by the National Open Science and Research Steering Group. The outputs of OSMI working groups, especially the list of open science monitoring initiatives compiled in WG2, have been extremely helpful in providing important background material on international and national monitoring solutions, as well as benchmarks for the national development work.

Marita Kari, Senior Specialist, Secretariat for Open Science and Research, Finland

Since completing the self-assessments of OSMI’s Principles of Open Science Monitoring, the exercise has highlighted several areas for improvement. Implementation of recommendations has advanced and we have incorporated many of them into our 2026 work plan. These are actively being worked on and will be implemented in the coming months.

Planned work includes adding clearer guidance to interpret dashboards and adding case studies to provide qualitative approaches. We will also conduct a stakeholder survey to co-create requirements for expanded open research monitoring and we will continue to encourage PID adoption, particularly in disciplines with lower coverage.

At NARIMA, we view open science not merely as a policy direction, but as a structural transformation in how research, knowledge dissemination, research assessment, and infrastructure development are conducted. The OSMI framework provides a practical lens through which we can align our institutional strategies and roadmaps with the broader vision articulated in the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

REBIUN is participating in the PLATICA (PLAtaforma Transversal de Impulso a la Ciencia Abierta = Cross-cutting Platform to Foster Open Science) project. PLATICA is funded by RedIRIS, a national agency for IT infrastructures under the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, and developed by Crue (Conference of Rectors in Spanish Universities, where REBIUN belongs to) with support of FECYT (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology). Launched in 2025, PLATICA aims to deploy national infrastructures: a tool for research data management plans, an aggregator and repository for research data and an open science monitor. REBIUN is coordinating the technical committees working on them.

Once the OSMI Principles of Open Science Monitoring were published, REBIUN provided the document to the companies that are helping develop the monitor. The selection of sources and the technical concept are being aligned with what the Principles propose. Besides that, REBIUN created the translation of the Principles to Spanish (and has also prepared a Spanish version of the infographic).

It is also interesting to highlight that when OSMI started the first four working groups, REBIUN provided one representative for WG3. In the last couple of months REBIUN has also started coordination meetings with all the 4 Spanish persons involved in WG2 and WG3; ideally more people should join WG4 and also WGs 5 and 6 when they are kicked off.

In Slovenia, we have developed a coordinated national open science infrastructure that aligns with the principles of Open Science Monitoring Initiative (OSMI). The COBISS.SI bibliographic system, together with SICRIS and dCOBISS, provides standardised metadata management, supports monitoring of open access publications, and partially supports monitoring of FAIR research data.

Institutional repositories, such as the Digital Library of the University of Maribor (DKUM), are integrated with COBISS and dCOBISS and connected through the Open Science Slovenia portal, which aggregates and distributes metadata to international services such as OpenAIRE.

The repository software, the national Open Science Monitor, and the Open Science Slovenia portal are developed at the University of Maribor (FERI, LHRS). The library contributes through institutional and national working groups (e.g. Slovenian Open Science Community) on open science and research information. We have adapted some workflows to input data for open science monitoring (data on publication costs, funders, project data, research data, licenses) in dCOBISS and DKUM. We offer workshops for all support staff (bibliographers, repository administrators) to ensure the most credible results possible.

More information about the Slovenian national open science infrastructure is available at https://openscience.si/OProjektu.aspx