Why knowledge security enables open science | NWO

"The Netherlands has been committed to open science, the sharing of publications, data, software and other scientific information at the earliest possible stage for the past decade. Scientific results that are openly available increase scientific impact and reach a wider audience. Moreover, open science facilitates the (re)use of research results within and across disciplines, and connects science with society. In Europe, the Netherlands occupies a leading position; for example, 94 percent of scientific articles are now openly available. Must all that be jettisoned now that the Netherlands is also committed to a stricter policy for knowledge security? Certainly not, argues Weijland. Knowledge security actually makes open knowledge exchange possible.

Weijland believes that open science and knowledge security are wrongly contrasted. There is a reason why the creed “open where possible, closed when necessary” applies to open science. An extreme form of openness, in which “all windows are open” and “everyone can read and copy everything,” has never existed, according to him. Not all data can be shared, because of privacy concerns, for example, or because of collaboration with industry and intellectual property rights. Before the focus on knowledge security, this was also the practice...."