Open science

The concept of open science has different definitions and includes multiple aspects and opportunities for you to consider what open science could mean throughout the research cycle. In general, open science refers to the efforts and mechanisms by which the findability, accessibility and (re)usability of scientific knowledge are promoted in the digital era. Open science encompasses:

• open research outputs, including 
  • open access to research publications,
  • open access to research data and methods,
  • open scholarship culture, and
  • open source code.
• In addition to open research, open science as an umbrella term encompasses other aspects of science such as open education.

Picture: Innovation Platform France-Canada.

The EU's open science policy writes that "Open science is a policy priority for the European Commission and the standard method of working under its research and innovation funding programmes as it improves the quality, efficiency and responsiveness of research."

Openness as a strategy for responsible science and impactful research both empowers and democratizes science:

• The transformative potential of open science has been recognized for reducing the existing inequalities in science, technology, and innovation (STI), decreasing duplication costs in collecting, creating, and transferring data and scientific materials, and accelerating progress towards the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
• More accessible and verifiable scientific knowledge and research processes increases and ensures the self-correction, reproducibility, and quality of science, and thereby the reliability of the evidence needed for decision-making and policy as well as increased trust in science.
• Openness facilitates and accelerates the utilisation of scientific knowledge and scientific methods not only in research, teaching, and studying, but also in solving national and global problems, fulfilling the missions of the higher education community. There has been significant available evidence for the economic benefits and substantial return on investment associated with open science practices and infrastructures.
• Open science facilitates innovation and disciplinary and interdisciplinary collaboration within the scientific community and in the wider social circle.
• Open access to research results improves the visibility and societal impact of both individual researchers and research institutions. 

Source: UNESCO (2021). Intergovernmental Meeting of Experts (Category II) Related to a Draft UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

Hanken has been actively promoting open science and following the national and international principles and requirements of openness in science and research. Active promotion of open science is included as one of the key elements in Hanken 2030 Long-term Strategy. The main objectives are to advance open access to research outputs including scientific publications, research data and methods, and transparent and responsible assessment of research.

In August 2019, Hanken signed the Declaration for Open Science and Research (Finland) 2020-2025 and is committed to following the strategic principles, objectives, and action plans outlined in the four Policies of Open Science and Research in Finland to achieve the goals set out in the Declaration.

To continue to promote open science:

• Hanken encourages that all the new annually reported peer-reviewed scientific articles are made available open access at time of publication. Self-archived copies of the articles are uploaded to Hanken’s research database Haris and preserved in Hanken’s institutional repository DHanken. See Hanken's guidelines on open access to scholarly publications.

• Hanken endeavours to ensure that properly documented metadata of research data are published for the findability and reproducibility of the research data. It is strongly recommended to use Fairdata Qvain metadata tool, offered by the Ministry of Education and Culture and maintained by CSC, to describe and publish metadata. Research data are to be archived and opened in national or international repositories when possible. Datasets are registered in Haris with the persistent identifiers (e.g., DOI or URN) for the (meta)data. See Hanken's guidelines on open and FAIR research data.

Metadata are data about data and describe the context, content, structure, compilation, and management of research data (See page 13 for the definition of data documentation which can be a readme file or metadata). It is through the metadata that the datasets become visible, findable and first assessed for downloads and reuse. Creating appropriate and rich metadata is the key to making data open, understandable, and reusable.

• Hanken encourages the school’s researchers to make their analysis and research methods generally available. See Hanken's guidelines on open research methods.

• Hanken follows national and international development in transparent and responsible assessment of research outputs and research impact. See Hanken's guidelines on transparent and responsible research assessment.

For a more detailed description, see the PDF file below – the updated version of Guidelines for Open Science and Research at Hanken (2021). See also the first version of Guidelines for Open Research at Hanken (2016).

Monitoring and evaluation work is being carried out on both Hanken’s and national level. The monitoring of the implementation of the open science policies is the responsibility of the National Open Science Coordination, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV). The Ministry of Education and Culture has assessed the maturity level of open science and research in Finnish research organisations based on the information available on each organisation’s external websites and data collected via requests for information.

At Hanken, the implementation of the Guidelines on open science and research will be monitored actively and related instructions be updated when necessary. The openness of publications is monitored by calculating the number and types of open access publications. These are reported in the annual publication reporting to the Ministry of Education and Culture. The number of published (meta)data of each Finnish organization is displayed under “Research data” in the National Research Information Hub. The Library extracts such reports from Haris database.

Hanken offers diverse and multi-professional services and training on open science strategies and practices to students, teachers, researchers and support services experts. Expertise in open science practices will be made an integral part of research training.

• Support in open access publishing, for example, self-archiving, discounts on APCs and Hanken's central fund for open access publication fees. Contact haris@hanken.fi.
• Support in responsible and FAIR research data management (RDM), for example, assistance with data management plans (DMPs), data collection and organizing, data storage, backup and transferal, metadata creation, data sharing and preservation, and ethical and legal compliance. Contact openresearch@hanken.fi. 
• Support in Haris registration of research merits including publications, datasets, projects and activities. Contact haris@hanken.fi.

The training and support for open access publishing and research data management ensure that research outputs produced at Hanken are open and available for shared use, and compliant with relevant ethical principles and legal regulations. Open science and research services are compatible with national and international services.

• Gender Equality, Responsible Research and Innovation Tools
• Promotion of equality and non-discrimination at the Academy of Finland
• The United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals 
• UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science
• Declaration for Open Science and Research 2020-2025, Open Science Coordination in Finland, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) (2020).​​​​   

Picture: Declaration for Open Science and Research 2020-2025