Frontiers welcomes the call from UNESCO, WHO and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for all science to be made open – Science & research news | Frontiers

“This is a timely and refreshing call for open, inclusive and collaborative science from UNESCO, WHO and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Today, as a second wave of coronavirus takes hold, we welcome this calm and firm call back to the principles and vision of open science, the benefits of which have become abundantly clear – as have the shortcomings of locking scientific knowledge behind expensive paywalls. The short-term suspension of barriers to some areas of research during the pandemic has been helpful, but also teaches us how we could have benefited from open-science practices within the research-innovation cycle. Indeed, we should not need to wait for a societal system breakdown before seeking out, as an international community, a sustainable solution to enabling lasting progress through universal and free access to scientific research.