What are the factors driving and hindering the adoption of open science? An exploratory study

The advance of networking and computing technologies offers unprecedented opportunities for the implementation of principles and practices of Open Science. Yet its uptake entails factors beyond merely technological circumstances. Substantial conditions relate to stakeholder attitudes and institutional arrangements. Built upon findings from an e-survey and a high-level workshop involving a wide range of stakeholders, this paper makes an early contribution to understanding the significant factors enabling or hindering the uptake of open science practice in the immediate research areas involving research professionals and research organisations. We found that key drivers to the uptake of open science practices include the usefulness of publicly available research outcomes in developing personal lines of research; nonetheless, the propensity of research professionals to openly share their contributions is not high. Operational barriers such as difficulties in assessing the quality and rigour of research contributions, lack of skills and or time to contribute to the open science movement are slowing the uptake of open science. More importantly, there are institutional barriers linked to systemic issues such as the inadequacy of the current funding schemes. In particular, we found that institutional inertia plays a significant role in inhibiting the further opening of the scientific process. This exploration has opened promising insights for a roadmap for further research.