Open Science is integral to the Royal Society of Chemistry’s organisational mission: to support the chemical science community to make the world a better place. It is essential to address global issues (such as current and future pandemics, and climate change) at a quicker pace than ever before, and in fundamentally more collaborative ways.
We believe that science which is carried out in a more open and transparent manner has the promise to increase the quality, robustness, longevity, trustworthiness and global impact of the work and its outcomes.
We recognise that publishers have not always been considered fellow-travellers in the Open movement, but as a not-for-profit publisher we believe we have an important role to play, learning from all of the stakeholders in the scientific ecosystem, from researchers to librarians and research funders, and providing leadership among our fellow publishers, large and small. As we seek to continually increase the proportion of our articles that are published as Open Access, we face a number of challenges, not least of which are the need for Open Science to be properly funded, with clear, common codes of practice and globally suitable solutions that go beyond equality to a position of international equity.
In this talk we will present the thinking and rationale around our recent and forthcoming developments, including the introduction of Data Availability Statements, transparent peer review, author contribution statements (following the CRediT taxonomy), Open Access books, and our support for engendering a more Open research culture across our community. We want this to be the beginning of a genuinely collaborative and open conversation about the concrete actions that publishers such as ourselves can perform or support in order to further our shared goals.
A Not-for-Profit Publisher's Perspective on Open Access
