But “unevenly” distributed costs fall on researchers, institutions and publishers that do invest, report says
The adoption of open science, which aims to make research outputs and methods accessible and reusable, has “significant” economic benefits, according to a report.
But the study, carried out by consultancy Technopolis for publisher Plos, found that these benefits are incompletely captured by current measures and that more coordination is needed to encourage investment.
‘Meaningful’ efficiency gains
“Meaningful” economic benefits arise when research tools or outputs are made openly available, Technopolis says in a report published this month, adding that this is particularly the case for data, code, workflows, software and training resources.
Efficiency gains resulting from less duplication of effort or investment and speedier research are “the most immediate and consistently quantified economic benefits”, it finds.
Resulting gains can “substantially exceed” initial costs, especially when resources are widely adopted, according to the report, although it adds that value “depends on sustained adoption and maintenance”.
Global GDP would be about 2 per cent lower if no countries supported open science, the report suggests.
Benefits underestimated and mismatched
However, the report continues, the economic benefits of open science are “systematically underestimated” at present because of gaps in how they are measured, a weakness that contributes to underinvestment.
Furthermore, the costs of open science are “distributed unevenly”, falling on those individual researchers, libraries, publishers and other infrastructure providers that do invest.
“Supporting comprehensive open science may involve libraries investing in and maintaining diverse infrastructure,” the report says. “Each type of repository needs specialised technical expertise, storage capacity, metadata standards and curation practices [as well as perhaps] support services.”
Because the benefits are shared, this produces a “cost-benefit mismatch” that also affects investment, the report warns, adding: “Without coordination, this…limits the scalability.”
Call for alignment
The report suggests that research funders should do more to align investment in shared infrastructure, and that better measurement of the economic impacts of such efforts “is critical” to encouraging them.
“The findings…provide a robust evidence base that supports the value of a transition towards open science and helps clarify where economic value is created and where barriers remain,” the report concludes.