Ethical and Societal Foundations of Open Science
InstructionsEthical and Societal Foundations of Open Science
- Gain an understanding of the principles and values of open science, including its ethical foundations and societal benefits.
What is this about?
Introduction
The UNESCO Recommendation on open science defines open science as: “[..] an inclusive construct that combines various movements and practices aiming to make multilingual scientific knowledge openly available, accessible, and reusable for everyone, to increase scientific collaborations and sharing of information for the benefits of science and society, and to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community. It comprises all scientific disciplines and aspects of scholarly practices, including basic and applied sciences, natural and social sciences and the humanities, and it builds on the following key pillars: open scientific knowledge, open science infrastructures, science communication, open engagement of societal actors, and open dialogue with other knowledge systems.” (UNESCO, 2021) Science as an activity and social practice is aimed at generating new knowledge. The most basic justification of open science as an overarching goal is that through the implementation of open science practices we will, as a global society, produce more and more reliable knowledge “for the benefit of science and society” (UNESCO, 2021).Key Issues
Open science and research ethics have in common their foundation on the universality of human rights. In full alignment with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, open science assumes and serves the principle that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” Additionally, article 27 of the Universal Declaration states that “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”, as well as “Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author”.
The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science identifies the core values of open science. These values, applicable to the entire scientific research process, include (1) quality and integrity, (2) collective benefit, (3) equity and fairness, and (4) diversity and inclusiveness (UNESCO, 2021). The UNESCO Recommendation also introduces guiding principles of open science, such as transparency, scrutiny, critique, reproducibility, equality of opportunities, responsibility, respect, accountability, collaboration, participation, inclusion, flexibility, and sustainability (UNESCO, 2021).
Open science practices are in principle reciprocal and symmetrical. Everyone contributes knowledge and data by making them openly accessible, and everyone can then use the knowledge and data for further research. Citizen and participatory science is part of open science as one of the types of engagement of social actors and is defined as "models of scientific research conducted by non-professional scientists, following scientifically valid methodologies and frequently carried out in association with formal, scientific programmes or with professional scientists with web-based platforms and social media, as well as open source hardware and software (especially low-cost sensors and mobile apps) as important agents of interaction." (UNESCO, 2021, p. 18-19)
