Changing research incentives in practice: lessons from institutional experiments

Research institutions around the world are increasingly developing open science policies, strategies and action plans. Following this momentum, the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science provides common ground in terms of the open science definition and key areas that institutions should consider when promoting it. Multiple initiatives recognize the key importance of institutionalizing incentives for recognizing and encouraging open scholarship practices.

International initiatives such as DORA and CoARA have been instrumental in gaining leadership support to make change happen at research institutions and universities worldwide. Considering this, after the 2023 CERN-NASA Summit “Accelerating the Adoption of Open Science” a group of participants highlighted there is a need for connecting broad principles with concrete strategies to change research incentives towards open scholarship.

This brief presents lessons learned and open questions from various initiatives aiming to change incentives for open scholarship in practice. It intends to add to the global discussion in this field, some of which is referenced at the end of this document. As with any other case studies, the intention is to inspire others working in this topic; learnings need to be contextualized before being taken as implementation guidelines.