Open Science at Stockholm University
Stockholm University actively promotes an open science system, where everyone has free and open access to scientific texts, research results and research data.
What is open science?
Open science is a broad concept that aims to make research results and all parts of the research process more transparent, accessible and reusable for research, innovation and development. With open access to scientific information, the results and processes of research can benefit more people both within and outside the research community, while research itself becomes more robust and effective. More people can scrutinise, verify and test it, and it becomes easier to build on previous results.
Scientific studies do not need to be repeated unnecessarily, which makes open science resource-efficient from an environmental, economic and ethical perspective. Research shows that what is published by open access spreads faster and is quoted more often. Open access to research results also creates opportunities for a fairer distribution of information resources globally.
The government's goal is for Swedish higher education institutions to have converted to an open science system by 2026:
Open science, such as open access to publications and research data, contributes to increased transparency, which promotes good research practice, impact, reproducibility and validation of knowledge.
The Swedish Government's Research Bill 2024/25,16.7
Open Access and FAIR
Research material such as scientific publications, research data and other research outputs should, as far as possible, be published with open access and managed using the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) principles.
Open access publishing means publishing something freely available on the internet, under an open licence. For research, this means that anyone should be able to find, read, download, open, copy and further disseminate research results. The author of an open access publication still owns his or her intellectual property rights and decides how the work can be reused, disseminated and cited.
FAIR means that research results are managed, organised and documented in a way that makes the information findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. This is particularly important when it comes to research data, so that other researchers can understand, review and reuse it. FAIR does not automatically mean openly accessible. As open as possible and as restricted as necessary is the practice throughout the research process.
When publishing, researchers can make their research results as open and FAIR as possible in collaboration with a publisher, a journal or a repository.
Open Science at Stockholm University
Stockholm University actively participates in national and international developments to promote the transition to an open scientific system. The starting point is that the university's researchers conduct their research as openly as possible and as limited as necessary, taking into account legal, ethical, practical and possible commercial aspects.
As one of the first Swedish universities, Stockholm University has established a comprehensive policy for open science. The policy, which is based on the recommendations of the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions, describes the university's overall objectives in the transition to an open science system. The policy is accompanied by the document Open Science Plan, which clarifies how the University will achieve the goals set out in the policy with the division of responsibilities for open science.
Open Science Policy at Stockholm University (Staff pages)
Open Science Plan (Staff pages)
Stockholm University has also appointed Wilhelm Widmark, Library Director at Stockholm University Library, as Senior Advisor to the President with operational responsibility for Open Science at the university. As Senior Advisor, Wilhelm Widmark represents the President and university management externally in these matters.
Read more about the Senior Advisors to the President at Stockholm University
The university is working to ensure that open science is included as a criterion for research assessment. As part of this work, Stockholm University has signed The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). Read more about these initiatives further down this page.
Open Science in numbers
Here you can see how Stockholm University is progressing towards the national goals of open access to publications in 2020 and research data in 2026.
Status of open access articles
Since 2016, Stockholm University has largely funded the publication of open, peer-reviewed articles. In 2023, 90 per cent of all peer-reviewed articles were published with some kind of open access.
Definitions of OA categories
- Gold OA: Open access articles published in journals that only publish open access articles.
- Hybrid OA: Open access articles published in journals that publish both closed and open access articles.
- Green OA: Articles that have an open access version placed in a repository (for example, as a preprint).
- Bronze OA: Articles that do not have open licences, but are freely available to read from the journal's website.
- Closed: Articles that can only be read by subscribers.
Comments on the statistics?
The statistics for open access scientific articles are based on DiVA and are processed manually. If you have comments on the statistics, please contact us.
Contact the bibliometrics function at Stockholm University
Status of open data
Research data refers to the material collected or generated and analysed in a research project to support scientific results and conclusions. It can be, for example, measurements and experiments, texts, sound and image files, statistics or questionnaires.
Open data means that data is published openly on the internet and can be freely used and reused by anyone if they acknowledge its source. Open access to research data means that anyone can access these data, but it does not necessarily mean that they are open for all kinds of use and re-use. There may be reasons why the use is subject to specific conditions, which limit how the data can be used.
Research data is often costly and time-consuming to generate and is a valuable resource that should be carefully managed to ensure that it can be used and shared, not only for immediate and later research, but also for education, innovation, review and archiving for example.
There is no complete overview of the status of open data at Stockholm University, but a survey from 2024 shows that for 2022, 80 datasets were published in the five repositories where Stockholm University supports researchers in the publishing process. This is only a small part of the data published at Stockholm University, as researchers are generally free to choose from a large number of open data repositories, and can choose to share their data in other ways, not only via repositories. Some also choose not to make their data available in the form of a public dataset, for example to protect sensitive material or for intellectual property reasons.
A review of a random sample of 10 per cent of the peer-reviewed articles published in 2022 showed that few of the articles that should have openly published data attached to them did. Of the 301 articles that were empirical, around 10 per cent had published underlying data in a repository or similar and clearly linked to these in the article. An estimated 39 per cent of the articles referred to underlying data, either as supplementary material in the article, via published material with a persistent identifier or via a link to another source.
National and international guidelines and collaborations within Open Science
Stockholm University actively participates in the national and international development to promote the transition to an open scientifical system and encourages collaborations in national and international contexts. The university also participates in national consortia and university-owned national infrastructures to ensure that resources and competences are used in an appropriate and resource-efficient manner. In addition to this, several government commissions within open science are conducted in Sweden, which form the basis for the university's Open Science Policy. Some of these collaborations and assignments are described below.
Podcasts, articles and films on open science
Do you want to learn even more about open science? Browse among a selection of articles, webinars and podcasts on the topic on our open science editorial page.
Last updated: 2025-10-14
Source: Communication office