The Challenge:
The traditional model of science erects barriers for students, practitioners, policymakers, industry, the general public, and—increasingly—researchers outside of the best-resourced institutions. When research findings are inaccessible, opaque, and difficult to verify, the ripple effects for both science and society are dramatic. Patients, caregivers, and doctors can’t rely on cutting edge findings to inform treatment plans. Policymakers are less equipped to lean into evidence-based decision making. Scientists can’t test and build off of prior studies to accelerate the pace of discovery. Facing existential challenges like climate change and pandemics, a system that excludes voices, hinders progress, and eschews transparency is outmoded and counterproductive.
What Can Be Done:
Open science is a burgeoning global movement transforming the traditional research and knowledge dissemination landscape. Characterized by transparency, collaboration, equity, and accessibility, open science aims to make scientific research and findings freely available to communities, patients, practitioners, policymakers, and the general public. By making research findings freely available, open science facilitates greater collaboration among scientists, enables wider participation and trust in the scientific process, and fosters innovation. Moreover, by democratizing access to scientific knowledge and involving broader societal actors, open science can address pressing global challenges more effectively.
How Open Research Community Accelerator is Meeting the Challenge:
The Open Research Community Accelerator (ORCA) works with communities across the research ecosystem to make science more engaging, accessible, and actionable. ORCA aspires to a world in which open science is the expectation and norm for research and is disseminated openly by default.
ORCA recognizes that effecting systems-level change requires collaboration across a wide range of organizations and sectors. These efforts encompass open science policies, incentive structures, infrastructure solutions, training programs, and impact assessment mechanisms. The ORCA team has deep experience nurturing coalitions across sectors — philanthropies, higher education institutions, government agencies, professional societies, international bodies, and industry — to advance practical collaborations that propagate data-driven best practices.
