Monitoring Open Science : it takes a village!

Open Science has become a central priority in research policy worldwide, driving increased transparency, accessibility, and collaboration across disciplines. As its adoption grows, so does the need to effectively monitor progress, assess impact, and inform decision-making. Open science monitoring plays a crucial role in this context: it enables institutions, funders, libraries, and publishers to better understand the uptake of open practices, identify gaps, and support the development of evidence-based policies. However, despite its importance, monitoring efforts remain fragmented, often relying on diverse methodologies, indicators, and infrastructures that limit comparability and reuse. In May 2023, the G7 Science and Technology Ministers highlighted the need for a shared framework for monitoring Open Science. Existing initiatives, such as national and regional dashboards and tools, demonstrate both innovation and commitment, but also reveal a lack of coordination at the global level. While several key guidelines exist, no common international framework had yet emerged to ensure alignment, interoperability, and responsible use of indicators. The Open Science Monitoring Initiative (OSMI) was created to address this gap. Rather than developing new monitoring tools, OSMI aims to bring together a broad community of stakeholders (including libraries, publishers, research institutions, funders, infrastructure providers…) to adopt shared principles and guidance. Its goal is to support more coherent, comparable, and responsible open science monitoring practices worldwide, while encouraging the exchange of expertise and best practices. The initiative builds on a highly collaborative process. A first draft developed by French experts was refined during an international workshop hosted at UNESCO in December 2023, gathering over 50 experts from major research organizations. This was followed by a global consultation involving more than 150 contributors from 40 countries. This collective effort led to the formalisation of OSMI and the publication of the Principles of Open Science Monitoring in July 2025. These Principles are structured around three core pillars: relevance and significance, ensuring that monitoring efforts are meaningful, inclusive, and adaptable; transparency and reproducibility, promoting the use of open, reliable data and methods; and self-assessment and responsible use, emphasizing continuous improvement and discouraging simplistic or reductive evaluation practices. Importantly, the Principles advocate for monitoring as a tool to support and incentivize open science practices, rather than as a basis for ranking or evaluating individual researchers. For stakeholders, the value of this work is multifaceted. Libraries can use the Principles to guide the development or refinement of monitoring services and support institutional strategies. Publishers can better align their data and practices with transparent and interoperable standards. Research institutions and funders can rely on more robust and comparable indicators to inform policy and investment decisions. This keynote was delivered during the PUBMET 2026 Conference in Zadar.