Following on from the National Plan for Open Science launched in July 2018, the CNRS presented its Roadmap for Open Science at the 2019 National Open Science Days (JNSO). The implementation of this roadmap is based on tangible projects structured around four main objectives:

1. To maintain control over scientific production and achieve the objective of 100% of CNRS publications in open access as set out in the roadmap;
2. To develop a culture of data management/data sharing among all actors in the data life cycle based on the implementation of the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) principles;
3. To develop and promote infrastructures and tools for independent scientific content search and analysis;
4. To transform how researchers are evaluated individually.

To achieve these goals, the CNRS’s roadmap is based on 7 main axes which each have defined actions:

1. Publications: to reach 100% of open access scientific publications by promoting “bibliodiversity”.

• Action 1: To pursue a policy of supporting and developing the HAL Open Archive in conjunction with a policy of encouraging scientific publications to be deposited in the HAL Open Archive.
• Action 2: To recommend the use of servers for preprints. These host journal manuscripts to offer rapid dissemination solutions open access via non-profit-making platforms.
• Action 3: To support electronic publishing platforms that host open-access texts and offer publication and certification facilities.
• Action 4: To support a documentation strategy aimed at reducing the burden and cost of journal subscriptions and increasing accessibility to the published versions of manuscripts.
• Action 5: To ask that all publications resulting from research work funded by a CNRS call for proposals be made available in open access.

2. Data: to make them accessible and reusable according to FAIR principles to consolidate knowledge as this is essential for the development of more efficient science.

• Action 1: To develop a culture of data management/data sharing among all actors in the data life cycle – researchers, engineers, computer scientists, document specialists, librarians, etc.
• Action 2: To develop data publication (data papers), joint depositing of publications/data and to support researchers in the use of data management tools.
• Action 3: To support and accompany research infrastructures which produce data in the definition and implementation of data policies.
• Action 4: To support and accompany data Infrastructures by implementing a service coordinated with the Institutes for all staff working for CNRS units to promote data depositing.
• Action 5: To create and make available a directory of data repositories and services which the CNRS is responsible for and participates in.

3. Text and data mining and analysis: facilitating this with the development of infrastructure, tools and skills.

• Action 1: To support and develop infrastructure for content analysis.
• Action 2: The legislative framework: accompany, translate and inform.
• Action 3: To develop the use of data processing and visualization tools and techniques.

4. The individual evaluation of researchers: rethinking this to integrate evaluation which is compatible with the objectives of open science and taking researchers’ contribution to open science into account in the evaluation.

Those who evaluate researchers must take the following four principles into account:

1. The results themselves need to be evaluated;
2. Researchers must explain the scope, impact and personal contribution that they have made to each of the productions cited in the evaluation files;
3. It must be possible for all types of production to be evaluated;
4. All outputs cited in the evaluation records must be accessible on HAL or in another open archive.

5. The reconstruction of Scientific and Technical Information to making CNRS research more visible while streamlining information acquisition processes

• Action 1: To develop researchers’ membership of Orcid.
• Action 2: To work on new bibliometric indicators.

6. Training and skills: supporting and training all research personnel particularly doctoral students and research support professionals.

• Action 1: To develop the necessary skills and expertise for open access publishing.
• Action 2: To develop research data management skills.
• Action 3: To develop “scientific” skills enabling those involved to conduct open research including research integrity, ethics and law skills.
• Action 4: To develop laboratory support skills for analyzing and mining results.

7. International positioning: being part of international organizations to define and share open science strategies and best practices.

• Action 1: To align the CNRS’s positions with the European and international Open Science framework for the theme of data.
• Action 2: To support initiatives aimed at defining the elements of making data FAIR.
• Action 3: To communicate with our European and international partners on open access scientific publication strategies.

The CNRS roadmap for open science will be implemented through a regularly revised action plan under the responsibility of the Scientific and Technical Information Department (DIST).

Find out more: Open Science at the CNRS.