The Open Scholarship Initiative

OSI participants, alumni and observers are the largest group of high-level leaders ever assembled to work together on the future of open scholarship—over 450 in all. Our focus on bringing together high-level leaders has resulted in OSI developing an incredibly substantive knowledge base. This approach has also given thought leaders in this space the resources and connections they need to develop better open tools and policies.

OSI participants, alumni and observers represent over 250 key research and publishing institutions, 32 countries, and 18 different stakeholder groups in research, from researchers to universities, libraries, funders, governments, advocacy groups, and more. All perspectives are not only welcome in this group, they are needed to develop open solutions that work for everyone everywhere. OSI is the only group in the world that has taken this approach at scale for such a long time.

The work of this group has focused mostly on open access, but has also encompassed a broad variety of related issues, from open science to peer review, predatory publishing, impact factors and much more. There can be no solutions to any of these issues without a broad and complete understanding of how they are all related and entangled.

OSI recognizes—and indeed, embraces—the fact that there are many different definitions of open, that researchers have many different needs for open solutions and a variety of motives, and that the ability of countries and institutions around the world to implement open policy solutions varies widely. OSI’s main recommendations are to focus on policy solutions that are broad and achievable, based in evidence, and built on common ground, not ideology. Ideologically grounded solutions have decreased global equity in research, increased costs, consolidated power, and failed to capitalize on the full potential of open.