Designing principles for developing Iran's national open science policy

Implementing open science (OS) requires national policies tailored to each country's legal, institutional, and governance context, as no one-size-fits-all model exists. Iran's current OS-supportive policies remain fragmented, incomplete, and insufficiently coordinated. This study develops a context-sensitive framework for Iran's national OS policy by integrating evidence from international OS policy documents, Iran's policy documents, and expert perspectives. A qualitative three-phase design involving document analysis, expert interviews, and evidence synthesis was employed. The study identified 32 policy principles organized into six conceptual categories covering policy, management, extroversion, implementation, ethics and rights, and promotion. The results highlight phased implementation, governance through existing institutions, alignment with national legal requirements, flexible licensing, stakeholder engagement, and capacity building as key conditions for effective OS implementation. The proposed principles provide the first evidence-informed foundation for developing Iran's national OS policy and offer a transferable approach for adapting international OS principles to comparable national policy contexts.