Japan can embrace open science — but flexible approaches are key

"The communique from the G7 Science and Technology Ministers’ Meeting, held in Sendai, Japan, last May, expressed support for “immediate open and public access to government-funded scholarly publications and scientific data” (see go.nature.com/3xurjzw). Japan has however been slow to embrace open science. A government-backed preprint server, Jxiv, was established in 2022 (Nature https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/jjz5; 2022), but as of 1 May had only 326 manuscripts publicly available.

Earlier this year, Japan’s Council for Science, Technology and Innovation announced a policy shift: from 2025, a proportion of new research funding will require immediate open access and data sharing. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has established an ‘Open Access Acceleration’ fund worth around US$65 million to which institutions can apply to facilitate open science.

Unlike the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s preprint-centric policy (see Nature https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/mtcr; 2024), Japan’s framework includes support for journal article processing charges. Ensuring transparency of research, including metadata, is important. But, when building an international consensus on preprint publication, open access and data sharing, it is essential to consider the contexts and needs of research across various disciplines, and the varying models of openness they might want to pursue."