AgroParisTech puts open science at the heart of its research

With this in mind, AgroParisTech launched its HAL institutional open archive platform in 2011 and adopted an initial policy for depositing publications in the archive in 2014. Alongside the gradual shift from open access to open science, in 2017 AgroParisTech signed the Jussieu Call for Open Science and Bibliodiversity alongside a number of universities and research bodies. 
Under the impetus of the national plan for open science, the institution confirmed this commitment by adopting its own open science policy at the meeting of its Board of Directors on November 29, 2019, which was officially implemented on January 1, 2020. As part of this extension, AgroParisTech adopted a more specific policy on the management and opening up of research data in 2021.
The objective is both clear and ambitious: to make open science the default principle of research conducted at AgroParisTech. To achieve this, different parts of the institution have gotten involved to ensure better implementation of the various actions, and a process to support research staff has been developed. 

Three years after the open science policy was adopted, its results have been significant.

In terms of internal organization, a cross-disciplinary working group has been set up, involving several departments and including two support units, one with regard to research data and the other with regard to the HAL open archive platform. A network of correspondents is also being developed within the research units, in conjunction with partners such as INRAE, to help the teams implement these changes. 

Training of the research community constitutes a major aspect of the policy: a training plan for staff and Ph.D. Students is proposed jointly by the human resources department and the doctoral studies department. Joint projects carried out in conjunction with different departments to address how to set up research projects, internal financial support, and communications integrate open science into the various roles of the institution in connection with research. Allocation of a special budget is another means of support for the various players in the ecosystem. 

Links with partners are constantly being developed, both on a national level with INRAE and at the institution’s different sites. In particular, AgroParisTech contributes to the open science policy of Paris-Saclay University, and recently became a partner of two data workshops: DatASaclay (on course to obtain a label) for Paris-Saclay University’s research scope, and ADOC for research units within the scope of the University of Lorraine. 

Thanks to these various projects and schemes, which will be reinforced over the years to come,  initial results for opening up of research at AgroParisTech are very encouraging: as of November 22, 2022, 53% of scientific articles published by AgroParisTech staff between 2017 and 2022 were available in full on HAL, with a peak of 71% for 2020.

The full interim report on AgroParisTech’s open science policy is available below.