This week the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced that 2023 will be the Year of Open Science in federal agencies. This builds on their announcement last year of a deeper and more comprehensive open science policy for federally funded research. NASA’s Open Science lead Chelle Gentemann wrote an essay for Nature explaining how she became an open science fan, what a commitment to open science means for NASA, and how any research entity can take action to promote open science. Gentemann describes the agencies’ steps in committing to the Year in Open Science as follows:

First, we agreed on a definition: open science is the principle and practice of making research products and processes available to all, while respecting diverse cultures, maintaining security and privacy, and fostering collaborations, reproducibility and equity. Next, we set four goals for each agency involved in the Year of Open Science: to develop a strategic plan for open science; improve the transparency and equity of reviews; account for open-science activities in evaluations; and engage under-represented communities in the advancement of open science.

For others interested in joining in, Gentemann suggests:

Anyone can apply these four goals in their research team, department or organization. So, let’s join together. A useful starting point for developing a plan is to look at recommendations from the National Academies and other global organizations. Think about ways to be more open and equitable in reviews — for tenure, promotion, funding and projects. Share the steps that your organization has taken to reduce biases and how you measure their impact. Develop plans or pilot a programme to reward open-science activities in evaluations. Incentives are powerful: they will build a culture of valuing open science.

UVA is a member of the Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship (HELIOS), and has convened an Open Science Working Group to explore taking steps like those Gentemann outlines, to bring more UVA research into the open and make research more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

Read Gentemann’s full essay here:

Why NASA and federal agencies are declaring this the Year of Open Science