Towards a UNESCO Open Science Recommendation

Background 

At the 40th session of UNESCO’s General Conference, 193 Members States tasked UNESCO with the development of an international standard-setting instrument on Open Science in the form of a UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. 

The Recommendation aimed to define shared values and principles for Open Science, and identify concrete measures on Open Access and Open Data, with proposals to bring citizens closer to science and commitments facilitating the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge around the world. The Recommendation was developed through a multistakeholder consultation process and unanimously adopted by Member states in November 2021. 

Activities and impact 

• In early 2020, the ISC supported UNESCO in amplifying the global call, encouraging ISC members to participate in the survey. 
• Simon Hodson (Executive Director of CODATA) was appointed vice-chair of the UNESCO Expert Advisory Group on Open Science and had a major role in preparing the draft text. 
• In September 2020 the ISC published a draft discussion paper entitled Open Science for the 21st Century. 
• The ISC has published the results of a member survey carried out in 2020 to gather feedback on the draft Recommendation to feed into the UNESCO consultation process. 
• The ISC and its Members participated in the intergovernmental special committee meeting (category II) of technical and legal experts from 10 to 12 May 2021. The meeting focused on the final report of the UNESCO Secretariat, which contains a draft of the Recommendation on Open Science. 
• The ISC delegation to the UNESCO Special Committee meeting on Open Science, 6-12 May 2021, published a statement, which explores how the recommendation and potential cascading interventions by Member States could develop along two divergent pathways. 
• In November 2021, the UNESCO recommendation on Open Science has been unanimously adopted in its entirety by Member States during the Science Commission plenary. In this context, the International Science Council, in its convening role as the global voice for science, has reaffirmed that advocating and advancing open science is fundamental to the work of achieving the Council’s vision of science as a global public good. 
• Commentaries on the UNESCO Open Science Recommendation by Peter Gluckmann, ISC President and Barend Mons, CODATA President were published by the Frontier Policy Labs. Access the full series of commentaries by 15 leading experts from the Open Science community.