Finnish monitoring complies with OSMI Principles

Open Science Monitoring Initiative (OSMI) published the Principles of Open Science Monitoring in summer 2025. This publication forms the first internationally approved framework for monitoring open science and provides a foundation for responsible and comparable monitoring practices. In Finland, the national monitoring of open science and research was launched prior to the publication of the Principles. A comparison shows that the Finnish national monitoring aligns with all 20 OSMI principles.

Coherent, Reliable and Meaningful Monitoring

The first pillar of the OSMI Principles focuses on the relevance and significance of indicators. Indicators must be adaptable, relevant, inclusive, modular, reliable, and coherent. The Principles also emphasise the importance of collaboration in the development and implementation of indicators.

National monitoring in Finland is based on extensive cocreation. The Monitoring Model and indicators were developed by a working group appointed by the National Open Science and Research Steering Group. The preparatory work included an open consultation round. Experts have been invited to workshops during both the design of the Monitoring Model and the development and refinement of indicators prior to each monitoring round. Written comments could also be submitted.

The monitoring questions cover all areas of open science: culture of open scholarship, open access, open data, methods and infrastructures, and open education. The areas are examined by way of promoting. Indicators cover policies, services, outputs, and collaboration. The indicators are based on the Declaration for Open Science and Research and the policies that support it. In this way, monitoring provides information on the overall implementation in research organizations and serves as input for the further development of guidelines.

Transparency and Reproducibility

The second pillar of the OSMI Principles addresses system-level requirements for monitoring. It is emphasized that the infrastructures and indicators used are transparent and repeatable. Data sources need to be documented, and metadata quality is a high priority. Careful communication of results is also vital. These principles are put into practice in monitoring. Results are published openly on the Research.fi portal as interactive visualisations and are archived in the Fairdata service using persistent identifiers. The Monitoring Model and indicator workbooks from each implementation document the data sources, scoring models, and any changes between rounds, enabling comparability and reuse of the results.

Self-Assessment and Responsible Use

The third pillar of the OSMI Principles focuses on the development of monitoring and the responsible use of results. The primary objective of monitoring is to support the development of open science practices —not to produce rankings. Monitoring should include self-assessment and regular review of indicators. Results of the national monitoring may be analysed by organisation type and size, allowing for contextual differences. Long-term sustainability is ensured by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV), which coordinates the monitoring as a permanent national actor. Results are published with persistent identifiers.

Areas for Development

The comparison shows that Finland’s national monitoring is highly compatible with the OSMI Principles. Two main areas for further development have been identified: the inclusion of case studies to complement monitoring results and the implementation of a more comprehensive self-assessment aligned with the OSMI Principles, once OSMI has published more detailed guidance for self-assessment.