Open Access to Research (RO0062)

Open access to research results
2018-2020 Lead implementing agency/actor Ministry of Research and Innovation (MCI) Other actors involved State actors Ministry of National Education CSOs, private sector, multilaterals, working groups Centre for Public Innovation Kosson.ro What is the public problem that the commitment will address? The European Commission has introduced compliance with the principles of Open Access in the main funding programs for education and research (FP7, Erasmus +, Horizon 2020, European Research Forum). In April 2012, the Romanian Academy signed a Statement of Open Science support as a member of ALLEA - All European Academies which, together with the other signatories, called for "the implementation of Open Science principles for publications, research data, software, educational resources and infrastructures research". Commitment description What is the commitment? The commitment aims to lead to the adoption of a national Open Access strategy for research results, by implementing pilot programs and substantiating research and public consultations. How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem? (1) Identify and support a pilot public institution (ministry, agency, university, research institute) which will adopt a policy of publishing, communicating and valorisation on all scientific results financed by public funds with Open Access. (2) Identifying a domain with lower potential for commercial re-use controversy; the development of rules on the publication of open research results under an open license; implementation of these rules for acquisitions of central public institutions or projects funded by them. Create a repository for the data resulted from these projects. 35 Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values? Publishing studies and research results funded from public funds, as well as the establishment of a framework enabling the adoption at national level of policies in line with Commission Recommendation C (2012) 4890, which requires each Member State to develop its own Open Access policies. Milestone activity with a verifiable deliverable Responsible agency / partner Start Date: End Date: Identify a pilot institution and develop the pilot program MCI 2019 2020 Implementation of the pilot MCI 2019 2020 Mapping of institutional OA practices and policies in Romania MCI 2019 2020 Transposition of the developed rules on OA in the future funding programs for research, similar to the Horizon 2020 provisions MCI 2019 2020 Develop and adopt a national strategy on OA MCI 2019 2020 Additional information Correlation with other government programs/strategies National Strategy for the Digital Agenda, National Strategy for Research, Development and Innovation, Law no.1/2011 on national education, Ro-EU Partnership Agreement 2014-2020

15. Open access to research results

Commitment Text: "The commitment aims to lead to the adoption of a national Open Access strategy for research results, by implementing pilot programs and substantiating research and public consultations."

Milestones:

15. • Identify a pilot institution and develop the pilot program
    • Implementation of the pilot
    • Mapping of institutional OA practices and policies in Romania
    • Transposition of the developed rules on OA in the future funding programs for research, similar to the Horizon 2020 provisions
    • Develop and adopt a national strategy on OA

Start Date: 2018 ...............................................

End Date: 2020

Editorial Note: The commitment text is abridged. The full text can be found in the OGP 2018-2020 national action plan.

Context and Objectives

The European Commission has mandated compliance with the open access principles in the main funding programs for education and research (i.e., FP7, Erasmus +, Horizon 2020, European Research Forum). In April 2012, the Romanian Academy of Sciences signed a Statement of Open Science Support as a member of the All European Academies, which, together with the other signatories, called for "the implementation of Open Science principles for publications, research data, software, educational resources, and infrastructures research." [134] Since then, however, nationally funded research is not mandatorily published under open access, and there are very few open access publications. This decreases the chances of Romanian researchers to secure EU research grants, [135] and leaves the least experienced ones vulnerable to deceptive open access journals and magazines. [136] Consequently, many Romanian researchers resist publishing in open access journals, for fear that it may negatively impact their careers. [137]

This commitment has several objectives to help resolve this problem, from supporting a pilot policy for open access publishing of scientific results, financed with public funds, to creating a repository for the data thereby released. It therefore supports furthering access to information (i.e., research results). This will be aided by building a comprehensive IT infrastructure, capable of correctly storing and disseminating research results.

The milestones of this commitment are verifiable, but could be more detailed. In fact, open questions around how to implement the commitment have, at least in part, led to some disagreements between the Ministry of Research and Innovation (MCI) and the pilot implementing institution, the Institute for Researching the Quality of Life (ICCV), that will likely delay the creation of a single, interoperable repository of open access research. For instance, one of the disagreements centers around who has responsibility for constructing the portal: ICCV solely, or with assistance from MCI. [138] Some progress will be made with the implementation of the next National Strategy of Development, Research and Innovation (SNCDI) (2020 onward), which may put more emphasis on open access to research results. [139] But the interviewed MCI representative did not have a clear vision as to how the next SNCDI will be implemented, or how many funding programs will have an open access clause, or what percentage of research results will be made open. [140] Therefore, if this commitment is completed as written, it will likely have a minor impact on the quantity of open access research, as well as the overall quality of Romanian research.

Next steps

More intermediate steps are needed to transform the practices surrounding open access to research output in Romania. Romania currently consumes more scientific output than it produces, and consequently, stands to benefit from a proactive top-down implementation of open science principles. [141] The IRM researcher therefore recommends carrying this commitment forward to the next action plan, with the following recommendations to help improve its design and implementation:

Commit to nonwavering, larger scale, faster paced reforms.

• MCI could conduct the mapping exercise (Milestone 3) as part of the preparations for the design of the new SNCDI, not as part of its implementation. According to a civil society representative, MCI could involve civil society organizations that have extensive experience in the field, as well as rely on the OpenAIRE expertise and resources. [142]
• While mapping the open access practices and policies in Romania, MCI could identify the open access champions—i.e., institutions that have taken extraordinary steps to promote open access or open science. MCI could then publicly acknowledge their efforts and results by rewarding them or further sponsoring their efforts.
• MCI could commit to offering nonwavering financial support to open access publishing. For instance, a budget can be constructed by multiplying the average number of publications produced by Romanian scientific staff with the average cost of publishing under open access. This fund could be set aside for research institutes, academia, and universities to cover the open access costs. According to the representative of the Romanian Academy, this fund would be a significant support to the open access efforts. [143]
• Finally, MCI could impose a clause that requires funding recipients to publish at least 50 percent of their research output under open access for all research funds MCI offers. Only a high quota will create a meaningful impact.

Commit to the infrastructure and training necessary for open access.

• MCI could take a leading role in piloting publishing research under open access. To this end, MCI could partner with the ICCV and devise a clear action plan with detailed responsibilities for each partner and a clear funding line for a national infrastructure that can be connected to other existing open access infrastructures. [144]
• MCI could put together a team of experts and mandate them to promote open access across all major research institutes in Romania. In particular, the MCI experts could explain (during in-person trainings or through online trainings) the requirements for publishing under open access, the funds necessary and available and how to obtain them, the benefits from publishing open access, and the risks related to scam open access publications. Moreover, the experts could train and accredit the data specialist of each research institute to archive, retrieve, upload, and share research output across different open access platforms. [145]

[134] "Open Science for the 21st Century - A declaration of ALL European Academies", ALLEA General Assembly, 11-12 April 2012, available at http://bit.ly/2mmEWst.

[135] Interview with Ovidiu Voicu, Center for Public Innovation (CPI), 16 April 2019.

[136] Interview with Bogdan Simionescu, Romanian Academy, 2 September 2019.

[137] Interview with Eugen Scarlat, Ministry of Research and Innovation (MCI), 24 April 2019.

[138] Interview with Eugen Scarlat, MCI, 24 April 2019; Interview with Ovidiu Voicu, CPI, 16 April 2019;

[139] Interview with Eugen Scarlat, MCI, 24 April 2019.

[140] Interview with Eugen Scarlat, MCI, 24 April 2019.

[141] Simionescu, B. (2017) "Open science, un fenomen pregătit să schimbe realitatea cercetării", Market Watch, available [in Romanian] at http://bit.ly/2kGpY05.

[142] Interview with Ovidiu Voicu, CPI, 16 April 2019.

[143] Interview with Bogdan Simionescu, Romanian Academy, 2 September 2019.

[144] Interview with Ovidiu Voicu, CPI, 16 April 2019; Interview with Sorin Cace, Institute for Researching the Quality of Life (ICCV), 30 August 2019.

[145] Interview with Sorin Cace, ICCV, 30 August 2019; Interview with Bogdan Simionescu, Romanian Academy, 2 September 2019.

[146] European Commission (2018) "Education and Training Monitor: Romania", available at http://bit.ly/2m1potM.

15. Open access to research results

Limited

The Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization (MCID) mandated the Executive Unit for the Financing of Higher Education, Research, Growth and Innovation (UEFCDI) [73] to pilot the open access program. [74] UEFCDI launched a reimbursement scheme in 2019 for up to approximately 1,000 requests relating to conference participation, course fees, accessing research networks outside Romania, IP protection activities, as well as costs of publishing in open access journals. [75]

UEFCDI published a PowerPoint presentation from October 2018, which lists the scholarly search engines for Romanian publications published in open access journals. [76] Also, in October 2018, UEFCDI presented to researchers at the “Romanian OpenAIRE National Workshop – Implementing Open Access and Open Science in Romania” examples of collaboration in open science, including BrainMap and Engage in the Romanian Research Infrastructures System (ERRIS). [77] Finally, UEFCDI co-organized training for researchers wishing to publish their research in open access journals. [78] However, none of these initiatives offered a clear mapping of open access practices and policies in Romania, and thus a benchmark for measuring improvements, as stipulated in the commitment.

The National Plan on Research, Development and Innovation 2021-2027 was not drafted during the action plan’s period, so the provision that all research funded by public funds be publicly available with an open access strategy was not completed. [79] The National Plan on Research, Development and Innovation 2021-2027 will nevertheless be developed through a SIPOCA 592 EU co-founded project and will have an open science component. [80]

Previously, nationally funded research in Romania was not mandatorily published under open access, and there was significant concern from researchers in Romania with respect to publishing their works under open access. [81] As a result of this commitment, the UEFCDI has allowed researchers to apply for coverage of their publication fees if they published under the open access regime in recognized journals. Nevertheless, this funding stream closed in 2020 [82] and the lessons learned from the 2019 pilot are unavailable. It is unclear from the list of awards what the funding covered (e.g., course fees, conference fees, or open access fees). [83]