Open Science in Poland 2014. A Diagnosis

English version of the report “Open Science in Poland 2014. A Diagnosis”, prepared by the Open Science Platform team.

The aim of the report is to present a comprehensive overview of the current state of openness in Polish science. We present the institutional context of Open Science in Poland and analyse its selected legal aspects, as well as describe the current e-infrastructure of Open Access. The report also summarize the results of desk research and of surveys of Polish scientific journals and Polish scientists conducted for the purpose of the report.

The picture presented in the report shows the strengths and limitations of Open Access in Poland. The specific OA model in Poland is mainly based on grass-root initiatives implemented by publishers of scientific journals, researchers themselves, institutions providing IT solutions, and several institutions managing repositories.

The report, edited by Jakub Szprot, was prepared as part of the Open Science Platform activities. It’s available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 PL licence.

Chapter 2

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2.4 Open research data

The discussion on Open Access increasingly more often addresses not only the openness of publications themselves, but also of research data. The demand to provide OA to data is formulated (more or less strictly) on the European level, in documents such as the Commission Recommendation of 17 July 2012 on access to
and preservation of scientific information (2012/417/EU).34 The regulation on the Horizon 2020 programme introduces a pilot programme stipulating OA to data collected in the course of some of the Horizon 2020-funded projects. In order to establish the possible level of implementation of this demand, one should first establish the scope of the term “research data” and how the idea of openness should be understood in this context. It is particularly important to learn what technical and legal obstacles are standing in the way of providing OA to data and reuse of this data. Due to specific nature of the matter, the obstacles do not have to be the same, as it was in the case of OA to scientific publications.

We assume that any attempts to define research data as opposed to data in general, without comprehensive and detailed study of this issue would pose a high risk of mistake. There are simply too many disciplines of science and research methods to assume that any data may potentially lie outside of our scope of interest. The border between using data for scientific endeavours and other purposes is often ill-defined and blurred. For instance, the data obtained in the course of scientific research can later be used as a basis for other activities, or be added to public resources. It is also possible for the information flow to go in the other direction – the entities collecting data for non-scientific purposes, like entrepreneurs and public institutions, can transfer their data over to scientific projects.

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