Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information: “Researchers Need ‘Open’ Bibliographic Databases, New Declaration Says”

From Science:

Some of the best known databases, such as the Web of Science and Scopus, are proprietary and offer pay-to-access data and services supporting these and other metrics, including university rankings and journal impact factors. But in a declaration posted today, more than 30 research and funding organizations call for the community to commit to platforms that instead are free for all, more transparent about their methods, and without restrictions about how the data can be used.

“At a time when decision making in science is increasingly guided by indicators and analytics, addressing the problems of closed research information must be a top priority,” states the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information. Signatories so far include funders such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the French National Research Agency, as well as more than a dozen academic institutions.

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To that end, the declaration’s supporters hope to establish a Coalition for Open Research Information to plan next steps, says coordinator Bianca Kramer, a scholarly communications expert with consultancy Sesame Open Science. “We want to make it easier for organizations to work towards that transition, among other things by benefiting from each other’s expertise and by exploring collective action.”

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Existing alternatives to proprietary databases include PubMed, Crossref, OpenCitations, and OpenAlex. The last of these, established in 2022 by nonprofit OurResearch with funding from U.K. charity Arcadia Fund, has recently attracted high-profile endorsements, striking up partnerships with organizations including the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research.

Read the Complete Article (about 935 words)

Direct to Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information Website (incl. Full Text)
||| PDF Version (13 pages)

Direct to List of Signatories (as of April 16, 2024)

Direct to Statements by Signatories (including coalition S, DOAJ, and Open Citations)

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Data Files, Funding, News, Open Access, Scholarly Communications