The NRFU is developing a Strategy for Open Science

Recently, Gareth O’Neill, an expert on open science in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the European Commission, joined the meeting of the NRFU’s Scientific Council with a presentation on the experience of implementing open science practices under the OPUS project (Open and Universal Science).

The main goal of Open Science is to make research results more accessible, in particular to create an open exchange of methods, publications, data, software, and educational materials.

Last year, Ukrainian Government approved a National Plan for Open Science. The state policy of Open Science in Ukraine is aimed at ensuring the establishment of the principles of openness to research and educational data, providing the maximum possible access to research infrastructures, publications and data for researchers, educators, innovators, industrialists and other stakeholders, creating conditions for ensuring equal opportunities and equal access for women and men in research and science.

The National Research Foundation of Ukraine is also implementing Open Science principles in its activities. Since 2022, the terms and conditions for calls administered by the NRFU have been formulated in accordance with the Coalition for Assessment Reform in the Sciences (СoARA) principles. The Foundation joins OS international communities, actively participates in international and national events and activities dedicated to Open Science, which helps to raise awareness and build competence in Open Science. In addition, the NRFU is a member of the consortium of the Open Science for Ukrainian Higher Education (Open4UA) project.

During the meeting with Gareth O’Neill, the members of the NRFU Scientific Council discussed a variety of principles for assessing research and researchers, the role of grantmakers in implementing Open Science policy, and considered ways and tools to promote OS practices and CoARA principles.

Based on the experience of colleagues from the European Commission, as well as members of the Open4UA project, and Science Europe association, the NRFU is currently developing an Open Science Strategy to implement the principles of OS for grantmakers in Ukraine.

Reference
		CoARA  is a coalition that brings together research funding and implementing organizations, national/regional assessment bodies and agencies, associations of research funders and implementers, as well as research societies and other relevant organizations. Participants committed to reforming the current research evaluation system. After our involvement in the discussion of the main principles of the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, the NRFU officially accepted the commitments mentioned above.
		Open4UA  is a project co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ program in the area of Higher Education Capacity Building. The Project aims to advance the growth of Ukraine’s knowledge-driven economy for the post-war recovery by reforming the higher education system. This will be achieved through prioritising Open Science across different levels (from National policies to individual researchers), which is reflected in the project objectives: 1) fostering the National reform on Open Science for the higher education system modernisation and EU integration by supporting legislation amendments based on the orchestrated National consensus; 2) introducing existing advanced approaches and creating state-of-the-art recommendations and mechanisms to reform research assessment to prioritise Open Science at the National level during state certification of higher educational institutions and research projects evaluation; 3) fostering the institutional reform on Open Science and advancing research assessment in higher educational institutions through developing and piloting related toolkits.