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Kazuhiro Hayashi is a senior researcher at the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) who researches policy science and is working to making open science a reality.

Policy-Level Open Science and Its Potential

What is the “open science” that one frequently hears about these days?

Hayashi: According to a Cabinet Office expert panel on open science, it is “a new way of engaging in science that aims to produce innovation. It does so both by opening new paths for knowledge creation through making publicly funded research results easily accessible and usable (by the scientific community, industry, and the general public), as well as by effectively promoting scientific research.”¹ This is open science in its narrow sense. This definition is found in a policy document, and policy-level open science has expanded from article open access to also include the reuse of research data. So, it puts open science in this context. There is still no widely and generally shared definition of open science. While this connects to what I will say later, I explain open science as a movement that makes use of both information infrastructure that has been digitalized and networked, as well as the massive quantity of diverse information that this infrastructure opens up, thereby transforming scientific research and changing industry, society, and the relationship between science and society.

What kind of data does open science policy take aim at?

Hayashi: Open science in a narrow sense takes aim at three types of data. First is the evidence used for academic papers. Around the world it has become the basic route to make academic articles—the research results that are deeply rooted in the scholar ecocycle—open access. Also, with transparency and fairness emerging as problems surrounding academic papers, the Cabinet Office document from which the aforementioned definition was taken states, “As a general rule, the data (academic articles and their evidence) from research carried out with public funds should be publicly released.”

The second kind of research data is research findings as well as the data produced in the research process, which is covered by the likes of the Comprehensive Innovation Strategy. The Cabinet Office document also states, “It is preferable that insofar as possible other research and development findings also be publicly released as research data.”

Hayashi: While these two are comparatively easy to grasp, the third kind of data is “logs of research activities and the accompanying data produced.” This is the place that people ultimately envision open science will reach. Moving more “upstream” from the data produced late in the research process such as publications (articles, etc.) to the stage when research projects are conceived of, activity logs would allow people to understand the kind of research funds secured, the scholars that participated, the kinds of experiments carried out, the results arrived at, and the ways in which these results were brought together and published. By attaching data locators to these logs and creating networks of the latter, one can find out who contributed to a certain research project, as well as when and in what way they did so. In the open science paradigm this is one way research activities can be assessed. With broader assessments of scholars’ research activities as a whole that are based on networks comprised of such diverse items, a situation will probably emerge that is healthier than the present one in which comparatively easily-quantifiable indicators (number of articles, times quoted, patents, etc.) are only used for assessment. There is the possibility that contributors (data creators, etc.) who have been hidden up until now can get the recognition they deserve and be brought into view not as simply research supporters but research partners.

Open Science is More Burdensome!?

I don’t really have a concrete image of how the research data acquired in the research process is made “open.” What benefits are there for scholars who do so?

Hayashi: Speaking based on the narrow world of my experience and knowledge, I think first we could mention the sharing of data between research project members, something that seems doable but doesn’t really get done. The most close-to-home benefit of open science is that current research becomes more efficient. In other words, open data encourages the proper management of research data in one’s own research group and making daily work more efficient. This leads to the “relative” opening of the research process.

Also, I think it would be good if people also focus on managing and publicly releasing research data that was produced in research that has already finished. This is something that scholars actually don’t want to spend time on. There are two kinds of this data: the research data of people who have left their post, and research data from the past that, having written an article or had one’s intellectual curiosity satisfied, remains after moving onto the next research project. The latter is closer to home, so to speak. If research institutions offer places to store data so that one can feel secure in moving to the next research project, the scattering and loss of data can be avoided, and other scholars who see this data might end up giving rise to new research projects. Furthermore, if there is inter-university cooperation, then it would be easy to move data when changing institutions.

Hayashi: What is most important is that right now around the world discussions are being carried out regarding how to make research data be the main medium of research results, how to make it play the role that academic papers are playing today—have it be something that increases scholars’ acclaim and leads to promotions and the acquisition of research funding. Things are also being done to make this a reality. Even if one doesn’t start from the stage at which one conceives of a research project idea, I expect that if research assessments and incentives based on research data distribution network analyses are developed, sustainable projects will unfold which support the distribution of this information. Furthermore, as these are standardized, they will also develop into the world of industry. When doing so, distortions that are not in keeping with the proper development of science, such as those which occurred with regard to academic articles (a commercial publishing industry oligopoly leading to price increases, the carving out of fields based on commercially successful magazines, and so on), should be avoided. Also, so that Japan does not fall into a situation where it has to adopt to standards created in other countries, which costs money in the end, it should have a presence in international standardization and must also think about cultivating industries in Japan that support the distribution of data. I think Japan has this chance right now.

Since it appears that scholars’ burdens would increase, it’s hard to say whether at present they should actively dive into open science.

Hayashi: Even if publicly people say that research data management platforms which don’t place a burden on scholars will be created, in reality scholars’ data management work (adding annotations and the like) is indispensable, and this does place a burden on them. At present, I think there’s not much that can be done about this. Therefore, what’s key is the way one thinks about designing services while cultivating a shared awareness of the kind of value arrived at by this work. Then there’s risk management: what’s the timing and method of launching things that won’t make stakeholders feel hurt? First thinking in this direction is probably best.

To put it a little more concretely: if one is able to use research funds to carry out research just like one always has, is training the next generation, and is successful in one’s connecting one’s work to future academic research or industry, then even if there are some parts that can be made somewhat more efficient with ICT, I don’t think this is something that should be rejected outright. Rather, such people should continue to engage in their research as they have done, and information technology used to support it. Before they know it, data will be managed in the back-end (in the cloud, etc.), and they’ll be able to share and release this data when they want to. I think that this is one of the preferable way to do things. From there, design infrastructure and services that appeal to scholars’ desires for these things to be easy to do, enjoyable, or helpful for their standing. If a minimal vital service is offered without which they cannot do research, then costs and a bit of extra work will not be things they are reluctant about, and this can also lead to a sustainable foundation for research.

Hayashi: As I said before, everything won’t be replaced all of a sudden by open science’s new values or values that are produced by the sharing and distribution of research data. First, it’s important to add in these values and have them co-exist with existing ones. The question is whether universities will allow this co-existence and, once a shift in values becomes appropriate, carry it out fully. It might become a test of endurance.

Society Changing Thanks to True Open Science: Enjoy the Transition

Up until now we’ve been talking about open science on a policy level. In closing, I’d like to ask about what you think is “true” open science.

Hayashi: I think about open science more broadly than that which is written in policy documents, and understand it to be science’s digital transformation. I see the “open” in “open science” as referring to the liberation of knowledge, and therefore adopt the position that making all research that receives public funding “open” is only one part of open science.

I also think that by liberating knowledge and information, a paradigm shift in science, industry, and society will occur; repeatedly in history society has changed when the information infrastructure changes. Thanks to Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press and the development postal mail logistics, there was an explosion and opening up of information that went far beyond when things were written and manuscripts copied by hand. As a result, there was the Reformation and the Renaissance, and science advanced, giving rise to physics. Therefore, I think that being able to make information open—whether relatively or by an order of magnitude—via ICT information infrastructure will be the driving force of a paradigm shift, and it is inevitable that this will be accompanied by societal transformation.

What kind of paradigm shift do you think will occur due to the liberation of knowledge that’s brought about by open data?

Hayashi: In short, knowledge will develop based on new science (such as data science), science will become more democratic, the borders between scientists and ordinary citizens will change, and the style of scientific research will become different as well. Also, Japan might be able to break out of its importation of Western science culture. It could become an agent that itself creates scientific capital and a philosophy of science for the open science paradigm. This is a chance that Asia as a whole also has.

However, this is still some ways off, and I honestly don’t think that this era will easily arrive in my lifetime. This is because behavioral transformations require generational change, as well as because there are many problems that cannot be solved with technology alone, such as those relating to societal systems, including law. The keeping of logs from when a research project is conceived up through the public release of its results, which I discussed earlier, is already technologically feasible. However, it will probably take some time before researchers will accept this. Therefore, while there is still a tendency to see open science as something fishy, only history knows.

Hayashi: In other words, right now is a period of transition in that society is becoming digitally native. Being a transition period, it’d be great if universities, particularly younger scholars, could enjoy this situation with a forward-looking attitude—to be a scholar is to be someone who actively enjoys creating new paradigms. Of course, I understand that it’s difficult for younger scholars today at universities to take up something with an unclear future. While this is an unfortunate situation, I think that at the very least there’s a bright future for those who can get through this, and, as for myself, I will continue to engage in activities that look to the tomorrow of the open science paradigm.

March 4th, 2019
(Interviewer: Asa Nakano)