August 19, 2022

Through OPUS, YERUN will actively contribute to Open Science

On 1 September, and for a duration of 3 years, YERUN will be involved in the Horizon Europe project OPUS (Open Universal Science). OPUS involves 18 different European partners, covering a wide range of organisations with relevant expertise to this project, and is led by PLOCAN.

OPUS will develop coordination and support measures to reform the assessment of research and researchers at Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) and Research Funding Organisations (RFOs) towards a system that incentivises and rewards researchers to practise Open Science.

OPUS understands the term ‘Open Science’ to refer to practices providing open access to research outputs, early and open sharing of research, participation in open peer-review, measures to ensure reproducibility of results, and involving citizens, civil society, and end-users in the co-creation of research and innovation agendas and content. With this interpretation of Open Science, OPUS will conduct a specific focus on reforming the research(er) assessment system to incentivise and reward researchers to take up these practices. 

OPUS will deliver a state-of-the-art of existing literature for Open Science, interventions to implement a reformed Open Science system at Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) and Research Funding Organisations (RFOs). OPUS will develop indicators and metrics to monitor the implementation of the interventions. In particular, incentives to reward researchers to practise Open Science will be developed and tested.

In particular, OPUS will test interventions and indicators and metrics for Open Science via 3 pilot RPOs (namely, the YERUN members: Nova University LisbonUniversity of Rijeka, and University of Cyprus) and 2 pilot RFOs from Lithuania and Romania (RCL and UEFISCDI). This ambitious work package will be led by YERUN. These pilot organisations will learn from both each other and draw experience from external experts in mutual learning exercises. The results of the pilots will be translated into policy briefs and thematic workshops that will help to raise awareness, build trust, and drive the uptake of Open Science in the community.

More information: https://www.plocan.eu/en/plocan-to-coordinate-horizon-europe-grant-for-support-to-changes-in-the-assessment-of-research-and-researchers-to-reward-the-practice-of-open-science/