UNESCO, WHO and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights call for “open science.”

Announcement in full: https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-who-and-high-commissioner-human-rights-call-open-science

Fred Fenter, executive editor at Frontiers, commented:

“This is a timely and refreshing call for open, inclusive and collaborative science from UNESCO, WHO and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Today, as a second wave of coronavirus takes hold, we welcome this calm and firm call back to the principles and vision of open science, the benefits of which have become abundantly clear – as have the shortcomings of locking scientific knowledge behind expensive paywalls. The short-term suspension of barriers to some areas of research during the pandemic has been helpful, but also teaches us how we could have benefited from open-science practices within the research-innovation cycle. Indeed, we should not need to wait for a societal system breakdown before seeking out, as an international community, a sustainable solution to enabling lasting progress through universal and free access to scientific research.

“The challenges we face today, such as climate change, are complex and increasingly urgent. For scientific discovery and policymaking to accelerate and improve at a pace capable of addressing these challenges, scientific publications, data, and infrastructure must be available as a freely available universal asset. Policymakers must be informed and a stronger link between scientific evidence established. Open science can help to achieve that, and we are delighted to see further support for open science at the highest level.”

ENDS

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