Between democratization and instrumentalization: A constitutional perspective on open science

Open science is a hotly debated issue. Initially emerging as a grassroots effort to enhance the global accessibility of scientific knowledge, it has increasingly evolved into one of the dominant paradigms of contemporary research governance, driven by expectations of faster innovation, greater transparency, and societal impact. More recently, however, concerns over research security, dual-use technologies, strategic competition, and foreign interference have prompted calls for more selective forms of openness. At the same time, the use of openly available scholarly materials by private actors for proprietary large language model training has raised new questions about the meaning and fairness of openness itself. This article argues that open science both reflects and reinforces deeper structural transformations science is undergoing, including its politicization, economization, and medialization. These developments constrain the autonomous functioning of science, creating new dependencies on political priorities, commercial interests, and algorithmic visibility, and, as such, should be recognized as a constitutional concern. The article first traces the evolution of open science from a grassroots movement for knowledge democratization into a policy-driven and increasingly contested governance framework. It then examines how constitutional law should respond to the diminishing autonomy of science, arguing that traditional legal protections centered on individual academic freedom are inadequate to address systemic encroachments. Drawing on constitutional sociology, the article underscores the need to rethink fundamental rights frameworks to account for emerging threats to scientific autonomy in an era of digital governance, platform capitalism, and political instrumentalization. It concludes by outlining how a constitutional perspective could help shape open science policies that balance accessibility with the protection of scientific integrity, ensuring that open science remains a mechanism for democratization rather than a tool for political and economic instrumentalization.