Let's not Recreate Rankings: The Principles of Open Science Monitoring

In May 2023, the G7 Science and Technology Ministers emphasized the need for a shared framework for monitoring Open Science. While Open Science policies and practices have seen growing international support, monitoring efforts remain fragmented across national and institutional levels. Various dashboards and tools - such as the French Open Science Monitor, Germany’s Open Access Monitor, the COKI Dashboard in Australia, the Open Access Monitor in Korea - showcase both innovative thinking and varied approaches, but lack a unified global framework. Despite multiple important guidelines, such as the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, the POSI, or the recent PathOS Open Science Indicator Handbook, no shared, global framework for open science monitoring existed until recently. The Open Science Monitoring Initiative (OSMI, https://open-science-monitoring.org/) aims to fill that gap by offering principles, guidance and community engagement that support comparability, interoperability, and responsible reuse of monitoring indicators through common guidelines. To co-create and refine the first draft, designed by a group of French experts, an international workshop was held at UNESCO in December 2023, gathering over 50 experts from very different institutions, including CERN, NASA and CWTS. Following intensive collaborative drafting, a global consultation process amplified by UNESCO was a success, with an open call for participation that received contributions from more than 150 people from 40 countries across the world. This first collaborative effort was the spark for the creation of OSMI, an initiative that does not aim to create monitoring dashboards itself, but rather to bring together various stakeholders to encourage the sharing of best practices, in particular through its working groups, which have a total of nearly 200 participants. OSMI’s Principles of Open Science Monitoring https://open-science-monitoring.org/principles/ were published on 7th of July 2025 at a conference hosted by UNESCO and, in November 2025, they have already been downloaded more than 6,000 times. An important aspect is not to encourage the creation of new university rankings based on open science, but rather to promote best research practices and capture the nuances in how open science is monitored globally. The Principles are organised around three core pillars: Relevance and significance: all open science monitoring initiatives should be well-defined, relevant, and adaptable to diverse research contexts. They should support evidence-based policies and decisions, be developed through inclusive and participatory collaborative processes, and reflect the diversity of disciplines and stakeholders. Ensuring modularity, transparency, and consistency allows for reliable assessment while accommodating different needs and practices. Transparency and reproducibility: open science monitoring should, wherever possible, prioritize the use of open, transparent, and reproducible information, including metadata. It should further draw on infrastructures and methodologies that adhere to shared, agreed-upon principles and rely on publicly accessible data sources. Self-assessment and responsible use: open science monitoring initiatives should aim for continuous improvement through regular self-assessments and alignment with these Principles of Open Science Monitoring. Importantly, open science monitoring should be used to understand and incentivise open science practices. It should not be used in isolation to evaluate individual researchers but instead as part of a multifaceted approach to assist institutions, stakeholders, academic and non-academic communities in understanding and improving their research practices. The Principles provide a solid and international framework for developing or refining approaches to monitoring open science, at a time when this activity is becoming increasingly common in university libraries. This presentation will introduce the Principles, discuss some initial practical applications of its content by libraries around the world, present the working group's current outputs and activities, and outline the outlook for the coming years.