A policy to encourage the dissemination and sharing of knowledge
Open science aims to develop access to research results, publications and data in order to encourage the dissemination and sharing of knowledge. ANR’s open science policy is a strong commitment that aligns fully with the French National Plan for Open Science launched in 2018. Review of the actions deployed by the Agency in 2019.
“The implementation of our open science policy, a project for the whole agency, involves several ANR teams as it includes legal, financial, technical and scientific aspects,” explains Martine Garnier-Rizet, head of the Digital and Mathematics department (NUMA) and the Agency’s open science coordinator. The programme includes introducing the ANR Data Management Plan (DMP) template to ensure the principle of open research data is taken into account from the project preparation stage to the submission of data to an open archive. ANR has selected the template developed by Science Europe, which is available from DMP OPIDoR.
In line with France’s national open science plan, ANR also launched an Open Science Flash call on research practices and open data in 2019. Out of 100 submissions, 25 were selected for a total amount of €2.3 million. The projects cover a variety of themes: data warehouse certification, data management plans, introducing new tools and standards, French participation in international initiatives etc.
An information and awareness campaign
“The issues of open science concern all research communities and all the Agency’s programmes: projects funded through specific or multilateral calls for proposals and projects arising from the Investments for the Future programme or the Generic Call for Proposals,” explains Zoé Ancion, head of the open science project. “Levels of familiarity with open science vary widely from one community to another.” To promote these issues, ANR has conducted an information and awareness campaign within the agency and in universities and research institutions. Its goal is to promote its commitments to free access to publications and the management and openness of research data according to the principle “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”.
Coordinated action at national and international levels
“The Agency is a stakeholder in the open science ecosystem at the national, European and international levels, where it upholds the French position in favour of open science and bibliodiversity,” adds Martine Garnier-Rizet. As part of these efforts, ANR coordinates a network for national funding agencies (Anses, INCa, ANRS, Ademe etc.) to share and gradually adopt best practice in partnership with CCSD1, which develops the national open archive HAL, and the Inist2 OPIDoR teams. ANR is also a member of Science Europe and cOAlition S.
Scientific results are a common good. They should be accessible to everyone.
1 Centre for Direct Science Communication.
2 Institute of Scientific and Technical Information.
«Open science is a unifying subject»
“When we took part in the National Open Science Days in 2019, we confirmed our commitments within a collective approach, together with the new obligations on researchers: submitting scientific publications to the HAL national archive and preparing a data management plan (DMP) within six months of starting the project,” explains Zoé Ancion, head of the open science project. “This communication was aimed both at researchers and at research support staff (librarians, legal and financial departments etc.). Our DMP webinar in late 2019 attracted 350 participants. Open science is a unifying subject!”