Digital Dictionary

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Open Science (Dissemination)

Julien Roche

University libraries, Université de Lille, France

Opening up science

France...

France is a major historical player in open access and Open Science. In particular, two important initiatives have been undertaken in recent years, which have undoubtedly helped accelerate the movement.

The first is the promulgation, in October 2016, of the law “for a digital Republic”, known as the “Lemaire law”, which brings significant advances, including one directly affecting the issue of Open Science. Indeed, this law introduces a new right for publicly funded researchers. According to article 30 of the law, they can now deposit their publication and make it freely accessible, for example, in an open repository, after a period of 6 months for a publication in the field of science, technology and medicine, and 12 months in the field of humanities and social sciences, regardless of the terms of the contract signed with the publisher. In practice, this amounts to limiting to 12 or even 6 months the exclusivity of use granted by the author to the publisher.

The second is the adoption by France, in the summer of 2018, of a national plan for Open Science, with a strong ambition summarized as follows by the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, Frédérique Vidal, in her speech: “France is committed to making scientific research results open to all – researchers, companies, citizens”. This plan is based on nine measures divided into three ...