Helmholtz anchors Open Science

Open science promotes innovation in science, improves the transfer of knowledge to society and the economy, and ensures quality and transparency in research. With a new policy, Helmholtz supports the open accessibility of research data, scholarly publications, and research software for the public.

The Helmholtz Assembly of Members adopted the Open Science Policy in September. This policy stipulates that scholarly articles, research data, and research software be published openly. Open science thus becomes the standard for publication practices. 

“Open science is part of our canon of values at Helmholtz. With our Open Science Policy, we formulate guiding principles, set goals and create a common framework for open science at our Research Centers under the motto Openness by Design,” says Otmar D. Wiestler, President of the Helmholtz Association.

The new policy takes up the “UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science” and is based on the EU Commission's open science funding policy in the current Horizon Europe research framework program. Many Helmholtz researchers are already familiar with these requirements. 

“Our concern is to make the results of Helmholtz research accessible and reusable via sustainable digital infrastructures. This strategy benefits researchers, as well as society and the economy,” says Roland Bertelmann, head of the Helmholtz Open Science Office. Together with the Open Science Working Group and other experts, the Helmholtz Open Science Office prepared the policy and will now accompany its implementation at the Centers. 

Currently, 76 percent of Helmholtz scholarly articles are already accessible as open access publications. Open research data, the open access to digital research data, is practiced at Helmholtz. The Centers operate research data infrastructures through which unique data treasures are made accessible according to the international FAIR principles. The Centers participate in initiatives such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). Open science promotes the reproducibility of scientific results; central to this for many disciplines is the open publication of research software. This challenge is also addressed by the platforms of the Helmholtz Incubator Information & Data Science.

At the end of last year, Helmholtz, together with five research organizations in Europe, emphasized the importance of open science in the “G6 statement on Open Science”. 

Further information:

Website on the Helmholtz Open Science Policy:  https://os.helmholtz.de/en/open-science-in-helmholtz/open-science-policy 

DOI of the Helmholtz Open Science Policy: https://doi.org/10.48440/os.helmholtz.056