National funding roadmap and a revised declaration of OS with changes to the JUFO classification support the promotion of responsible openness.
In celebration of Open Access Week 2025, the National Coordination of Open Science (AVOTT) and the Finnish Publication Forum have collaborated to compile a topical news summary for the international open science community. The summary highlights recent developments in the advancement of open science and responsible research assessment in Finland during 2025. The global theme of Open Access Week 2025 is “Who Owns Our Knowledge?” Read how the developments reflect Finland’s commitment to safeguarding collective ownership and transparency in research.
The roadmap establishes an internationally competitive operating environment for responsible openness in research
The Roadmap for Funding Open Science and Research was published on 6 October 2025. It includes six recommendations for further actions and guidance concerning the funding. The roadmap is available in Finnish, English, and Swedish on the edition.fi platform. The purpose of the roadmap is to ensure that all actors in the Finnish higher education and research community have adequate, clear, and interoperable means and guidance for enabling open science and research, and the funding required for it, in a sustainable way.
The roadmap is based on the guiding principles and commitments outlined in the Declaration for Open Science and Research 2025–2030, as well as the policy components and their objectives and actions that clarify the Declaration. It also takes into account the Open Science and Research Reference Architecture 2024–2030, UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and its associated guidance on open science funding, as well as the CoARA Agreement on reforming the responsible evaluation of researchers and research (2023).
"The roadmap was developed over two years through broad collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders. The public round of comments brought us plenty of valuable ideas for improvement – and reassuring confirmation that this work truly matters”, says Susanna Nykyri from Tampere University and the Expert Panel on the Open Access to Scholarly Publications, who chaired the working group.
The Publication Forum Steering Group decided on changes to the classification system
Publication Forum (often referred to in Finnish as JUFO) is a rating and classification system that supports the quality assessment of research output. To reflect disciplinary differences in publishing cultures, the classification covers academic journals, book series, conferences, and book publishers. The four-level system has evaluated major domestic and international publication channels across all fields as follows: basic Level 1, leading Level 2, highest Level 3, and Level 0 for channels that do not meet the criteria for Level 1.
The evaluation is conducted by 23 discipline-specific Expert Panels comprising about 300 distinguished scholars based in Finland.
In September 2025, significant changes were approved to the JUFO classification.
The term “Level 0” will be discontinued. In future, channels not placed in Levels 1–3 will be referred to as “other identified publication channels.” This group includes peer-reviewed local or new venues, outlets at the interface of professional and popular publishing, and predatory or grey-area journals.
Level 3 will be discontinued. Accordingly, in the 2026 update assessment, the Publication Forum’s panels will no longer classify journals in JUFO category 3. The reform is aligned with the current university funding model period so that ending Level 3 will have no impact on university funding calculations for 2025–2028.
Revised declaration leading the promotion of responsible openness
The national Declaration for Open Science and Research was revised as a collaborative effort by the Finnish research community and published in May 2025. Updated to meet the needs of its time, the declaration addresses academic freedom, research security, and responsible international cooperation. It now calls on the research community to embrace responsible openness together. With the updated declaration, Finland reaffirms its role as an international forerunner in open science – together and responsibly.
“Openness is a fundamental value choice,” says Kaisa Miettinen, Chair of the National Open Science and Research Steering Group. “It enhances the reliability of research through transparency and reproducibility – and thereby increases impact and the potential for reuse and further development. In this way, it also fosters interdisciplinary collaboration.” At the same time, openness brings responsibility. As such, we adhere to the European Commission’s principle of ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary.’’
Feel free to dive in to openscience.fi and responsibleresearch.fi for more!
Text: AVOTT-secretariat and Publication Forum
Photo: Open Access Week
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