How Open Science can revolutionize global knowledge cooperation

"Knowledge needs to be globally accessible in order to combat the crises of our times, from climate and energy to health and food security. Technological advances such as cloud server storage and satellite-based internet connectivity could provide solutions for ubiquitous access. Yet, political will is needed to re-calibrate the regimes that prevent the free flow of knowledge.... What are the reasons why almost two decades after the Berlin Declaration the promises of the Open Science have not been met?     First, market and innovation-based regimes for privileging knowledge, such as intellectual property rights (IPR), patents, and subscriptions to journals and libraries, are structured that makes knowledge exclusive. IPR are an obstacle for communities to localise knowledge and benefit from products. COVID-19 vaccine patents remain a contentious debate as they disallow the free passing on of vaccine production knowledge. Gatekeeping extends to general scientific publishing, with the UNESCO Science Report 2021 noting that “five commercial publishers are responsible for more than 50% of all published articles and about 70% of scientific publications are still unavailable in open access.” This fact is despite there being more open access journals and repositories than ever before.     Second, access to knowledge needs suitable infrastructure. The fact that cutting edge science is mostly disseminated online, while only 63% of the world population had access to the internet in 2021, means that too many are excluded from the ideas, repositories and publications which are shaping our societies and from the civic participation that provides them representation.     Third, if servers and repositories of open data sets are following a restrictive logic of data localisation while cross-border arrangements for free-flow of data are missing, other countries are beholden to the infrastructure and jurisdiction of those who have accumulated and centralised knowledge and its products. This continues existing asymmetries in knowledge access and production and can turn into a severe problem when governments restrict access to the internet or when they default to nationalism in a global crisis...."