Towards an inclusive Open Science : examining EDI and public participation in policy documents across Europeand the Americas

Abstract

National, international and organizational Open Science (OS)policies are being formulated to improve and accelerateresearch through increased transparency, collaboration andbetter access to scientific knowledge. Yet, there is mountingconcern that OS policies do not effectively capture theethos of OS, and particularly its goal of making sciencemore collaborative, inclusive and socially engaged. Thisstudy explores how OS is conceptualized in emerging OSpolicies and to what extent notions of equity, diversity andinclusion (EDI), as well as public participation are reflected inpolicy guidelines and recommendations. We use a qualitativedocument research approach to critically analyse 52 OS policydocuments published between January 2020 and December 2022 in Europe and the Americas. Our results show that OSpolicies overwhelmingly focus on making research outputspublicly accessible, neglecting to advance the two aspects ofOS that hold the key to achieving an equitable and inclusivescientific culture—namely, EDI and public participation.While these concepts are often mentioned and even embracedin OS policy documents, concrete guidance on how they can