Open science is gaining ground, but does it work?

A growing number of initiatives are emerging at national and European level to track the implementation of open science, but not enough is known about whether open science practices are producing the promised benefits.

This is one of the lessons from PathOS, a Horizon Europe project aiming to identify ways to measure the academic, economic and social impact of open science, which is due to publish its final report in the coming weeks.

“So far, we’ve focused far too much on monitoring uptake and not enough on measuring or evaluating the impacts,” said Tony Ross-Hellauer, senior researcher at Know Center in Austria, as he presented findings from the PathOS project at a conference held at Unesco headquarters in Paris in July.

Open science practices aim to make scientific knowledge…