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Updated on: 23/01/2023
In the age of digital technology, France has set itself the mission of making scientific research findings more accessible to everyone. Why? To create a motivating environment around science and make research more appealing. Without a doubt, the University of Bordeaux is fully committed to this mission.
The French government has been implementing its National Plan for Open Science since 2018. 'Open Science' is the unhindered dissemination of scientific research publications and data.
Thanks to the advent of digital technology, France wants to extend the access to research findings to everyone - researchers, companies and everyday citizens alike - immediately and free of charge.
The aim is to stimulate research, to make it more cumulative, reliable, transparent and universal.
The University of Bordeaux is doing its utmost to be part of the process of making knowledge more accessible. The academics and researchers involved in the university's plan are convinced that opening up science promotes socio-economic progress and encourages innovation in France, as well as in developing countries.
The public health crisis has been a reminder of how important it is to share findings to speed up research.
The University of Bordeaux is aware of the issues raised by access to science. That is why it has launched two iconic and ambitious projects: OSKAR Bordeaux, the platform for archiving and disseminating publications and OpenU, the platform for open- access scientific journals.
The first one, Open Science & Knowledge Archive (OSKAR) makes it possible to deposit any scientific output online and to guarantee its safekeeping. Access to the platform's contents is open and free of charge. Think of it as an open warehouse, called a repository, in which documents are filed and catalogued. The whole scientific community, whether French or international, as well as the general public, can gather information there, ranging from journals and books to doctoral theses. All publications from the University of Bordeaux, University Bordeaux Montaigne, Sciences Po Bordeaux, Bordeaux Sciences Agro and Bordeaux INP are archived there.
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The second one is the OpenU Journals platform. It is a set of technical tools and services for publishing open-access scientific journals. For now, there are ten or so journals, focusing on law, wine, finance or spearhead technology. Users can explore the work done by researchers on those specific topics in open access.
The University of Bordeaux has partnered up with INRAE and the University of Lorraine to develop the platform, which won a call for projects in 2021 and received funding from the French National Fund for Open Science.
By 2030, the university and its partners hope to have over 50 scientific journals accessible free of charge on the platform.
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Since March 2021, the University of Bordeaux has sought to play a major role in the global movement for free access to knowledge. As a result, it has developed a comprehensive strategy to share research findings, provide more support to training researchers and disseminate science to the public more effectively.
The strategy is embodied by 5 major areas that will make it possible to achieve that objective. In particular, it aims to ensure that academic practices always comply with the principles of open science, especially by highlighting free or public resources.
That is a major issue given that 75% of document expenditure is devoted to digital resources (2021 figure). The publication and dissemination of open-access scientific output also require support. By 2022, the university hopes to reach 80% of publications archived online in unabridged form.
However, making scientific research more accessible also means questioning the very way research functions. Science also has to be opened up from above. The highly technical, world of academia mainly benefits people endowed with a knowledge base sufficiently broad for finding their way in it. As such, the objective is to ensure that all doctoral students are made aware of open science, for better circulation of their work.
The University is also striving to manage data more openly in scientific fields and to support researchers in promoting more transparent research.
The aim of this Open Science strategy is therefore to make science accessible to all, which raises the question of how to disseminate research data and tools to a wider audience.
In this day and age, when news circulates worldwide via the internet, the general public is just as capable of acquiring scientific information. Consequently, the idea is to use the digital transformation to develop access to research for all.
As such, the university supports participative and citizen science by organising various events (workshops, conferences, festivals) and encourages popular science journals.
