The road to the Open Science Recommendation being adopted commenced with a resolution from the 40th session of UNESCO’s General Conference in 2019, where 193 Member States tasked UNESCO with the development of an international standard-setting instrument.
Geoffrey Boulton an ISC Governing Board member intervened for the ISC, and warned the conference that:
The fundamental principles of Open Science are close to crisis point. An increasingly dysfunctional science publishing system undermines the scrutiny that is vital to the maintenance of scientific rigour, inhibiting access to the record of science in ways that undermine global inclusion which in turn risks the loss of public trust.
Geoffrey Boulton, ISC Governing Board Member
Megha Sud, ISC Science Officer and project lead for Open Science said:
While there was a palpable sense of buoyancy in the room of having achieved this milestone, there is also a realization that the real work begins now. The implementation of the Recommendation will need to be undertaken with the science community at the centre, and with a keen eye on the potentials to be realized and pitfalls to be avoided as the science system evolves in response to these efforts.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
