The UOC is committed to open science

"In recent years, the international community has shown a firm commitment to open access to scientific knowledge. The recent pandemic highlighted the need to share research results as quickly as possible and without obstacles in order to move towards a global goal, which in that case was to control the coronavirus. It also reignited the debate on whether it is lawful for the production of knowledge to be controlled by a few companies rather than by the researchers themselves, and whether this is in the public interest.

International Open Access Week is held worldwide from 23 to 29 October. It is an initiative that promotes open dissemination and access to academic research, and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) takes part every year. The university is committed to generating open knowledge and reforming research assessment to boost quality, performance and impact. Indeed, in 2019 the UOC signed the San Francisco Declaration (DORA), and in 2022 it participated together with more than 350 organizations from 40 countries in a co-creation process that resulted in the international Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). The UOC is now working on drafting its Research Assessment Reform Plan for 2024-2027.

Ciro Llueca took over as Deputy General Manager for Research and Knowledge Transfer at the UOC a year ago. We talked to him about the UOC's commitments and the challenges it faces in this area...."