The policy for open access to research data and methods consists of strategic principles common to the entire policy and two policy components in which objectives and actions are set out for each area. The strategic principles describe general preconditions for the pursuit of open access to research data and methods. They formulate principles that are important for the research community and must be adhered to when implementing openness.
The objectives defined in the first policy component for open research data and methods support opening, reuse, interoperability, findability and accessibility of research data. The supplementing second policy component on research methods, including code and software, is estimated to be completed in 2022.
Timeline for policy development
The working group for the policy began to assemble in the expert panel for the openness of data in 2019 and the first draft for the first policy component was presented in the open science spring conference in 2020. Request for comments was sent on 17 August 2020 for researchers, organisations and individuals. The draft was open for comments until 25 September 2020. Risk analysis workshops assessing possible risks associated with opening data were conducted on 14 January 2021 and 26 January 2021. The first policy component for open research data was approved by the steering group on 13 March 2021 and published on 4 May 2021.
The draft policy component on open access to research methods and infrastructures was open for comments from 12 April 2022 until 24 May 2022. Request for comments was sent for higher education facilities, research institutes, learned societies, science and research funders, scientific libraries and archives. In addition, the draft was open for comments for the whole research community.
After the commenting period, the working group will revise the draft and present it to the steering Group during autumn 2022. The goal is to adopt the policy components during 2022.
