Open Universal Science

The Open and Universal Science (OPUS) project will develop coordination and support measures to reform the assessment of research and researchers at Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) and Research Funding Organisations (RFOs) towards a system that incentivises and rewards researchers to practise Open Science.We understand the term Open Science to refer to practices providing open access to research outputs, early and open sharing of research, participation in open peer-review, measures to ensure reproducibility of results, involving all stakeholders in cocreation.

We henceforth in this proposal employ this interpretation of Open Science with a specific focus on reforming the research(er) assessment system to incentivise and reward researchers to take up these practices.OPUS employs a three-tiered approach to ensure representation and consensus building of key stakeholder groups in the Open Science ecosystem: (1) our large project consortium consists of researcher organisations, RPOs, RFOs, industry organisations, and experts in project management, public relations, and Open Science (2) a series of stakeholder engagement sessions will be held with the broader community to gather input and validate key project deliverables (3) an Advisory Board of key representatives will ensure expert oversight and links to the community.Objective 1: Conduct a comprehensive state-of-the-art on existing literature and initiatives for Open ScienceObjective 2: Develop a comprehensive set of interventions to implement Open Science at RPOs and RFOsObjective 3: Develop realistic indicators and metrics to monitor and drive Open Science at RPOs and RFOsObjective 4: Test the interventions and indicators and metrics via action plans in pilots at RPOs and RFOsObjective 5: Utilise a stakeholder-driven feed-back loop to develop, monitor, refine, and validate actionsObjective 6: Synthesise outcomes into policy briefs and a revised OS-CAM2 for research(er) assessment