At Xamk, our strategic goal is to strengthen a culture of open science and research as part of our influence on society. In accordance with the principles of the Declaration for open science and research, we want to:
- promote opennessthroughoutour higher education institution
- strengthen societal and regional knowledgebase and innovation
- improve the quality ofresearchand development outputs and the educational resources based on them and hence improve the flow of information and the impact of research outputs to the wider world.
Open science and research combine the themes of research ethics, scientific communication and openness as well as evaluation of science. Responsibility is a common value and goal for these themes.
The principles of openness at Xamk
South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences has undertaken to apply the principles of openness to all activities. We always aim to make the produced knowledge, processes, methods and competence visible and accessible to everyone in a controlled manner, unless this is not possible for ethical, legal or contract-related reasons.
The open research culture concerns everyone: researchers, project actors, teachers, students and other staff. Xamk’s research environments and infrastructures are as open as possible to other interested parties.
The strengthening of a culture of open scientific research is also included in Xamk’s strategy for 2020–2030. The practical implementation of the culture is continuously followed and monitored.
Open research culture in 2019
In 2019, the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture carried out a maturity level survey of all Finnish higher education institutions. According to the performance agreement, Xamk aimed for level four, which was achieved.
We supported an open research culture through active participation in the nationwide Open RDI project and various networks for open science and research. In addition, we developed agreement templates, ethical guidelines, material management practices, etc. that meet the requirements of open science and research.
We strengthened the personnel’s skills by developing open operating culture-related communication and handbooks and revising the open research culture website and the LibGuides service. We also arranged training on this topic for the personnel.
Open science and research: plan for 2020
In 2020, Xamk plans to implement several measures to promote open science and research and an open research culture. We will increase training in open science and research, survey possibilities for the use of self-study materials and train our personnel in areas such as material management and CC licences. We will prepare a material management data plan and develop the YKSA archiving system for the storage of research and development materials.
In 2020, we will also prepare an information leaflet and consent form for research subjects, including the related instructions. In addition, we will publish the open science and research policy and instructions also in English, improve the monitoring and metrics of openness and perform the first statistical review of open science and research at Xamk.