The need for Open science in the pandemic era
The need for Open science in the pandemic era
The COVID19 pandemic shed new light on the need for scientific cooperation in order to face the new
challenges and pave the way to recovery. Scientists shared knowledge about the coronavirus, starting
with the decoding of its genome by Chinese scientists who put their findings at the disposal of the
scientific community, followed by their German counterparts and many others.
The ICOLC (International Coalition of Library Consortia) statement dealing with the impact of the
pandemic on library services and resources[1] was another step towards Open science: it included an
appeal to publishers to put “any relevant content and data sets about COVID-19, coronaviruses […],
vaccines, antiviral drugs, etc. behind subscription-only paywalls Open Access immediately”, in order to
facilitate and accelerate research. The WHO “Solidarity call to action”[2], launched in the aftermath of
the WHO General Assembly on May 29, prompted all relevant stakeholders, first of all governments, to
“make the response to the COVID19 a public common good”, through pooling knowledge and data, but
also, and more importantly, intellectual property and health technology. This call aimed to emphasize the
utmost necessity for universal access to treatments and vaccines, to stress the right to health as a
universal human right, and to put forward “the fallibility of traditional ways of working when it comes to
equitable access to essential health technologies”.
Unfortunately, the pandemic emergency fostered competition as well as “star system” communication on
behalf of big businesses and allegedly prominent scientists. Multinational pharmaceutical companies
opposed the opening of data and intellectual property, pretending that it would be to the detriment of
innovation. “Scientific” communication via social media such as YouTube, supported by “civil society”
petitions, aimed at bypassing the usual validation process based on peer review and reproducibility. No
G7 or G20 countries have endorsed the WHO call. Moreover, the Trump administration decided to cut
off US funding of the WHO, considering that the organization was covering up the Chinese
responsibility for the virus spread. At the same time, the US tried to obtain the exclusive rights on the
upcoming vaccine, preempting the patents so as to prevent others from accessing the related research.
As scientists and citizens committed to peace and cooperation, we strongly denounce the aforementioned
attempts to undermine scientific reasoning, jeopardize knowledge, and create monopolies in order to
maximize profits. Open science is the only way to rebuild confidence between science and society: it is
of the utmost importance to promote scientific literacy for all, and thus silence obscurantism, antiscience, as well as control on knowledge and scientific results on behalf of capitalistic interests in the
globalized market.
Supporting Open science in theory does not guarantee commitment to its implementation in practice. We
urge governments to: endorse the WHO call, increase public permanent funding of scientific research,
promote fairness, reliability, scientific integrity and ethical standards. It is time to engage with UNESCO
in order to gain momentum and accelerate the preparation of the Open science recommendation, whose
implementation should be mandatory. This is the only way for science, society and democracy to thrive
in the post-pandemic vulnerable world.
[1] https://icolc.net/statement/statement-global-co
[1] https://icolc.net/statement/statement-global-covid-19-pandemic-and-its-impact-library-services-and-resources
[2] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/global-research-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/covid-19-technology-access-pool/solidarity-call-to-action
