COAR Welcomes the Adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science

"On November 23, 2021, the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science was formally adopted, representing a significant achievement in our collective progress towards open science. The endorsement of the Recommendation by member states demonstrates strong support for the notion that widespread scientific collaboration and knowledge sharing are critical to addressing our most pressing issues and to advancing new discoveries. The Recommendation,, which was developed with widespread community input and has been scrutinized carefully by an intergovernmental meeting of experts, provides a framework for the national adoption of open science practices and policies and aims to ensure that open science is implemented in a manner that “leaves no one behind”. It offers a framework that is flexible enough to allow national / regional variation in how it is implemented, also clearly establishes that “open” must become the default; governance must rest in the hands of the research community; and equity, inclusion and bibliodiversity are fundamental underlying principles. As noted by Megha Sud, Science Officer and project lead for Open Science of the International Science Council in reference to these Recommendations, “the real work begins now”. Designing an effective system that fosters diversity of research domains, actors,  languages and countries and also supports research at the global level will be extremely challenging. It means achieving a careful balance between unity and diversity; international and local; and careful coordination across different stakeholder communities and regions in order to avoid a fragmented ecosystem. On the other hand, we also have an unprecedented opportunity to greatly improve how research communications is done...."