Open science and communities of researchers: the big gap in training. A case study at Sorbonne University

In 2019, the newly formed Sorbonne University, created in 2018 by the merger of the universities Paris-Sorbonne and Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, adopted a strategic 5-year plan for 2019-2023 that put the promotion and development of Open Science as one of its four core principles. The strong institutional and political support for open science allowed the transition from the support of best practices to the adoption of a set of institutional policies, on open access publication, open data and data management plans, and on the evaluation of research and the allocation of institutional funding. This institutional strategy is also based on the Open Science national policy (Law for a digital republic in 2016, national plan for open science in 2018 and 2021) and European incentives (European funders’ policies). The mainstreaming of open science practices is also at work within the alliances in which SU is involved, especially the 4EU+ European University Alliance (Sorbonne, Prague, Heidelberg, Warsaw, Milan and Copenhagen) developing cooperation in teaching, education and research.

The challenge for Sorbonne University is to have the researchers adopt these policies in their scientific practice. It is a challenging task, requiring a small team to provide a coherent service answering the needs of a large and very heterogeneous community, with sometimes conflicting needs.

In a case study of Sorbonne University’s Open Science training, this paper will highlight how flexibility and pragmatism helped the framing of a coherent training program addressing the needs of open science novices as well as experienced practitioners. It presents the options chosen to train on a large and international scales and the “à-la-carte” sessions answering the specific needs of each community.

The paper also shows which skills and job profiles are needed to support a wide range of training. Some of these skills were found within the Sorbonne University Library (librarians, but also an archivist and a paleontologist), but it was also necessary to establish collaborations with other university services (ie, accompanying researchers in digital methods and data storage) for a more specific training on certain subjects.

The paper also describes the network built with research-related staff in direct proximity to the researchers (open science referents, project managers, etc.) on which the library relies to promote the training program.

Finally, it will present how the involvement in the 4EU+ Alliance created the opportunity to further expand the training on Open Science for an even wider and more diverse community, with the 4EU+ Open Science training program, built in collaboration with partners from six different universities during the COVID crisis and delivered online from November 2021 to July 2022.