Why do we need Open Science?

Presentiation at the 16 ESA conference in Porto, August 28, 2024. Session SP 1 - “Building Open Science Together: Transformative Concepts and Practices” Open Science is often perceived as the unptenth administrative burden or something imposed by European rules in research programs. Actually Open Science is a powerful tool to get a research process which is more efficient, as every component is ready to be reused and build upon, and more respondent to societal needs, as built in dialogue and co-creation with society. In this way, Open Science can work as a corrective in the current scholarly communication system which is plagued by retractions and scientific misconduct induced by the hypercompetitive evaluation criteria in place. Open Science is functional to research integrity as the entire research workflow is transparent, allowing for checks and reproducibility. Sensitive and personal data are taken into account the logic "as open as possible, as closed as necessary" and are enabled by the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). In the end, Open Science can be both boosted by and act as an enabler of the ongoing reform of the research assessment framework under the COARA initiative.