IFLA’s newest advisory committee, Open Science & Scholarship, was endorsed by the Governing Board in 2023. The committee is using its first term to August 2025 to further define IFLA’s contributions to these issues, raise awareness among the Federation, collaborate with other IFLA units and partners to shape opinion and debate around open access and library values, including intellectual freedom and human rights. Other issues that intersect with open science and scholarship include copyright reform and rights retention, equity and diversity (in all forms), trust and misinformation.

The inaugural members represent all of IFLA’s regions, and many library types and roles. In this blog post, the advisory committee’s members reflect on ‘what open science and scholarship means to me’, in English or their own language, highlighting commonalities and differences across the globe:

Fiona Bradley, OSSAC Chair, Australia

Knowledge is for everyone. Open science and scholarship is about inclusion and trust, and helps ensure everyone has access to the information they need in their daily lives, and to solve global challenges.

Talia Chung, OSSAC Secretary, Canada

Open science practitioners enable greater participation and build confidence in scientific inquiry, while open scholarship reduces barriers to research outputs needed to solve global challenges.

Heba Alshreef, Saudi Arabia

الوصول إلى جميع أنوع حركة البحث العلمي (بما في ذلك المنشورات والبيانات والعينات المادية والبرمجيات)

ونشر محتوى حر لجميع مستويات المجتمع بمنح مساعدة مالية لمساعدة الطلاب والباحثين على الدراسة وإجراء البحوث في المؤسسات الأكاديمية في جميع أنحاء العالم.

Access to all types of research traffic (including publications, data, physical samples and software). Publish free content for all levels of society by granting financial assistance to help students and researchers study and conduct research at academic institutions around the world.

​Frédéric Blin, France

Le mouvement de la Science ouverte vise à construire un écosystème dans lequel la science sera plus cumulative, plus fortement étayée par des données, plus transparente, plus rapide et d’accès universel.

The Open Science movement aims to build an ecosystem in which science is more cumulative, more strongly underpinned by data, more transparent, faster, and universally accessible.

Michelle Dalton, Ireland

To me open science and scholarship is about: providing universal access to quality and trusted information to empower all citizens in their lives and to effect a positive impact on society.

Lilly Hoi Sze Ho, Australia

It means to me that the society will become more transparent, inclusive and equitable: a high-trust society.

Ava Irani, Netherlands

Open Science and Scholarship unlocks the full potential and impact of academic activities. By sharing knowledge and involving citizens in the scientific process, the gap between society and academia is bridged.

Anna Leonard, Namibia

Open science is making scientific research (publication, data, software) open and accessible to all levels of society (rich or poor) to improve social justice and inclusivity.

Wouter Schallier, Chile

Through more transparency, collaboration, inclusion and fairness, Open Science and Scholarship help us to tackle the challenges we’re facing globally.

Madiareni Sulaiman, Indonesia/UK

“Open science and scholarship” is like “movie credits” to me—a way to acknowledge the efforts of all actors involved in interprofessional collaborations.

Ellen Tise, South Africa

Open science and open scholarship embody a profound commitment to democratizing knowledge and fostering equitable access to information – they serve as powerful tools for promoting social justice by breaking down barriers that hinder access to knowledge and where science truly serves as a global public good.

Mai Hammash, State of Palestine

الوصول إلى مصادر البيانات والمعلومات كحق من حقوق الإنسان، وتجريد المعرفة من القيود التجارية؛ببناء استراتيجية تدعم العملية

البحثية بمصادر مالية عامة، وتنظيم عملية الإنتاج الأكاديمي بتوجيه النظر أكثر نحو علوم المكتبات وإدارة المعرفة

Access to data and information sources as a human right, and the decommercialisation of knowledge by building a strategy that supports the research process with public financial resources, and organising the academic production process by giving more consideration to library science and knowledge management.

Fernando Hernández Vargas, Costa Rica

Para mi, ciencia abierta significa la generación de medidas que permitan romper brechas (económicas, de accesibilidad, tecnológicas…), permitiendo así una mayor accesibilidad de este tipo de conocimiento para con  todos los elementos de la sociedad.

For me, open science means the generation of measures that make it possible to break down gaps (economic, accessibility, technological…), thus allowing greater accessibility of this type of knowledge to all elements of society.

Wendy Wong, Hong Kong, China

Open science is opening research findings and research data for reuse in further studies on these resources.  These studies not only confine to researchers, but also welcome public citizens’ contributions. The funding used for the research is then more effectively and meaningfully consumed.