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Best Practices/Open National Research Results
Share-PSI 2.0 Best Practice
Source: Best Practices/Making Research Results Open For The Country
Contents
Outline of the best practice
Research data need to open at national level. Citizens should have access to research results and achievements produced at national level. In addition, researchers should be informed about what other researchers are doing in the country.
The Hungarian Scientific Bibliography (Magyar Tudományos Művek Tára, MTMT) is a comprehensive national bibliographic database of scientific publications and citations. It is legally supported by open access mandates for Ph.D. theses and publications by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund, and recently in a government resolution as well.
Management summary
Challenge
It is a valid request for citizens to access research tax data supported by the country or the EU. Furthermore, it is also beneficial if researchers are informed about what other natioanl researchers are doing. Finally, there is an administrative need to get overview, statistics and scientometric data about the scientific achievements.
Solution
The first step is to collect the bibliographic data for research results, which can be enhanced to collect the pointers to the publication or data, or to harvest the content itself. This has to be backed by law (copyright issues, researchers’ active contribution). Furthermore, this task needs an organization that operates the whole process and has much more accompanying tasks to do. Funding for this organization may come from the government or by an association of participating institutes, or a combination of both.
Best Practice identification
Why is this a Best Practice? What’s the impact of the Best Practice
The scientific achievement becomes discoverable and measurable, which helps researchers in cooperation and improvement as well as funders to get statistics and overview. It can also be used to assess individuals in case of assigning grants and degrees.
Links to the PSI Directive
Why is there a need for this Best Practice?
Researchers need to pay for reading a paper written by a colleague in the same town or country, while the paper is supported by a national or EU fund, or a state university. It is also unpractical that universities have different rules to calculate scientific achievements, and that these calculations cannot be checked. In addition, decision makers need validated statistics of scientific achievements to get an overview. The overview of universities is important at country level but also the overview of faculties and departments can be useful at university level.
What do you need for this Best Practice?
- organizing the collection of scientific data
- providing legal suport (e.g. the organization can help to resolve copyright issues with publishers. But on the other side, researchers has to be influenced to input their data, which can be an implicit regulation or incentive for getting funds, or a direct regulation for filling in their data in given periods.)
- establishing a network of local administrators in each participating institute
- informing and educating researchers (why this service is necessary, and how it can be used
Applicability by other Member States
The approach is applicable to any Member State. There are similar attempts in other countries, for example in the Netherlands (NARCIS) and in Sweden. Interestingly, Brasil has a similar system since the 90s. This shows there is a valid need for similar solutions, and the national solutions can later merge their data into a European level service.
Contact info
Andras Micsik, http://dsd.sztaki.hu/micsik