There are many transformations, such as the computer revolution (1962), the information revolution (1974) and the information society (1981), that have fundamentally changed not only societies (Beniger, 1986) but also the way science is conducted. Today, analogue materials such as letters can be converted into digital forms, and less time is needed for the collection of new data. We now have many more tools to digitally analyse data, and it has also become much easier to write an article as word processors have ousted typewriters.

The digitisation of scientific processes, or the first digital revolution of science as it can be called, has in many ways changed the daily scientific practices of data collection, analysis and reporting of results. Digital technology nowadays provides plenty of opportunities for faster and more effective scientific processes, and it also shortens the time from idea to scientific publication. However, although the first digital revolution of science also led to the emergence of the first e-journals in the late 1980s, it did not fundamentally change the tradition of sharing research outputs either via scientific publications or via oral communication. The rest of the scientific process starting from the idea stage before publication still remains largely a black box for outsiders (see Figure 1).

Although scientific publications have significantly increased the dissemination of research outputs, more importantly, they have enhanced access to information when new studies are planned (MacKenzie Owen, 2007). Information can be transferred more widely than before via open access publications, enabling even wider use and inspiring new studies. Furthermore, open access of publications can increase the visibility of scientists and provide new opportunities in academia and beyond (e.g. McKiernan et al., 2016).

As digitisation has been embedded in most scientific processes, researchers, research funders and decision-makers have started questioning the traditional way of sharing research outcomes only via publications or oral communications. It is now possible – and called for – to promote openness and share various types of research outputs.

For instance, at the conference “A New Start for Europe: Opening up to an ERA of Innovation” in June 2015, Commissioner Carlos Moedas said the following: “Although Europe generates more scientific output than any other region in the world, in some areas we fall behind on the very best science. At the same time, there is a revolution happening in the way science works. Every part of the scientific method is becoming an open, collaborative and participative process.” (Moedas, 2015).

Digitisation, together with the possibilities provided by the worldwide web, has fundamentally changed the traditional mode of research – from idea to data collection, analysis and publication, inspiring further scientific work. Releasing all of these types of outputs to a wider audience is now possible at a level never before experienced by the scientific community. The second digital revolution calls for scientists to adopt open science principles in their daily work.

In a revolutionary way, scientists can now open up their data and methods immediately – even before their scientific papers on the study in question have been published. This increased openness in the research process provides food for thought not only for new research ideas but also for society at large. Openness has the potential to significantly increase the impact of scientific work, since it not only expands the research outputs so that they can be exploited by other researchers for their own work but it also makes the outputs available much faster than before. Open data and methods can also contribute to the development of unexpected new research, such as by including open data into larger datasets or by using the open method in a different scientific discipline (see Figure 1).

Whereas the first digital revolution of science changed established practices, the second digital revolution of science – as we see it today – deeply challenges the consolidated roles of researchers, research organisations, libraries and publishers. Open science is considered to include not only increased access to research outputs but also more possibilities for different stakeholders to participate in scientific processes with increased transparency (Lyon, 2016; OECD, 2015).

The scientific society is international by nature, and it is essential to anticipate the potential impacts of decisions and actions on open science from local, national and international perspectives. Cooperation within different types of networks is therefore essential in order to ensure well-informed and effective decision-making and implementation by different stakeholders. After setting the scene of open science development, this paper presents the Finnish Open Science and Research Initiative as a case where joining networks and motivating individuals and organisations have over a relatively short period of time enabled the delivery of high-quality services, infrastructures and competence building for a transition towards open science. This paper is based on a keynote presentation given at the Liber 2016 Conference in Helsinki.

Open science is still in many ways an open goal yet to be reached. In order to progress, it is important also to understand what has brought us to the situation we face today.

In May 2016, the EU Competitiveness Council committed to accelerating open science: “Member states agreed to common goals on open science and to pursue concerted actions together with the Commission and stakeholders. Delegations committed to open access to scientific publications as the default option by 2020 and to the best possible re-use of research data as a way to accelerate the transition towards an open science system.” (Council of the European Union, 2016).

Looking back a few years, it is no wonder that some people have called this a life-changing decision. Only 15 years ago, academic and research libraries established the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) to make open access the default for research and education (Association of Research Libraries, 2016).

Fourteen years ago, the Budapest Open Access Initiative of the Open Society Institute stated that “open access to peer-reviewed journal literature is the goal” (Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002) and the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) became the first in the world to adopt an official self-archiving mandate (eprints, 2003).

Thirteen years ago, the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing in Biomedical Research (Bethesda Statement, 2003) and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities highlighted the need to move towards open access. The Berlin Declaration says: “The Internet has fundamentally changed the practical and economic realities of distributing scientific knowledge and cultural heritage. For the first time ever, the Internet now offers the chance to constitute a global and interactive representation of human knowledge, including cultural heritage and the guarantee of worldwide access.” (Berlin Declaration, 2003).

Since then, we have witnessed the emergence not only of thousands of open access journals (see the DOAJ1) but also of many new important players in the field, such as Open Knowledge International,2 ResearchGate3 and Academia.edu.4 UNESCO has also encouraged governments and organisations to develop open access policies (Swan, 2012).

In addition to open access to scientific publications, there has been significant progress as regards open data. Initiated already in the 1950s in the area of geophysics (ICSU, 1963), the idea of open data reached an important milestone with the completion of the Human Genome project 13 years ago (NHGRI, 2003). This was followed by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development Declaration on Access to Research Data from Public Funding (OECD, 2004) and by CERN launching its Open Data Portal ten years later in 2014 (CERN, 2014).

During the present decade, many important steps have been taken in developing new infrastructures to support open science. For instance, the pan-European infrastructure providing research data services, training and consultancy was established in 2011 (EUDAT5). Currently, we are discussing the Commission’s communication on the European cloud initiative (EC, 2016b).

All these developments have produced many different ways to support those who want to openly share their scientific work. Whereas “openness can be [thus] defined by a continuum of practices, starting perhaps at the most basic level with openly self-archiving postprints and reaching perhaps the highest level with openly sharing grant proposals, research protocols, and data in real time” (McKiernan et al, 2016), it is indeed a fundamental change that concerns not only scientific work but also more widely life beyond academia.

Important milestones for motivating scientific communities in terms of open science have been reached when funding organisations such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH, 2009; Rockey, 2012) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the US (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2015) and Horizon 2020 (EC, 2016d) in Europe have announced and tightened their requirements for open science.

Over the past few years, many key associations such as the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER, 2014) and the League of European Research Universities (LERU, 2015) have strongly advocated open science. Important milestones have also been reached during the Netherlands’ EU Presidency in 2016 (Council of the European Union, 2016; EC, 2016a; EU NL, 2016) as well as in the US, where the White House concluded that “policies to make data and publications resulting from federally funded research publicly accessible are becoming the norm” (The White House, 2016).

And many, many more actions throughout the world at the international, national and local levels have been taken. It has at times been quite difficult to keep track of everything.

Considering the development of open science as well as national needs, the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) has set out the Open Science and Research Initiative (known as the ATT Initiative) for the years 2014–2017 (ATT Initiative, 2016a).

According to the Ministry’s Open Science and Research Roadmap 2014–2017 (MEC, 2014), the vision for 2017 is as follows: “Open research leads to surprising discoveries and creative insights. This means a situation in which research data and materials move freely throughout society: from one researcher or research team to another, between disciplines, to innovative business, and to decision-makers and citizens. Information flow is facilitated by clear policies and best practices, and by providing services to safeguard the availability of scientific and research results. Openness is a joint operating model. Openness has given Finnish research an international competitive edge.”

The ATT Initiative will be successful only if open science becomes a natural part of the daily scientific work in all research organisations in Finland. To achieve this, two important starting points were identified. Firstly, the scientific society is international by nature. Therefore, it is very important that any actions or decisions at the national level be adjusted to the international developments in open science. On the other hand, Finland also wanted to enhance its own impact on international forums.

Secondly, there are – by nature – many divergent views within open science. This is of course only natural, since the second revolution of science will change not only the practices but also the values and roles of the different players involved. Therefore, we wanted to find a way of working where we could identify the questions we need to ask, the problems we need to solve and the players we need to engage with at the local, national and international levels.

In fact, we wanted to establish a way of working where competing targets and contradictory views would be turned from obstacles into strengths.

In order to ensure a speedy transition towards open science, there were three questions in particular: How can we motivate and inspire organisations and people? How can we ensure bridging between different networks? How can we deliver infrastructures, services and support for competence building?

The idea of open science has come very far from its early days and developed in leaps and bounds. Open science and research can significantly increase the quality and impact of science in academia and beyond (ATT Initiative, 2016a; EC, 2016a; LIBER, 2014; McKiernan et al., 2016; OECD, 2015). However, it is a revolutionary change that not only affects the way science is done but also challenges the roles of researchers, research organisations, libraries and publishers.

From the early days of development, research libraries have joined different networks and been among the most active stakeholders working towards open science (Association of Research Libraries, 2016; Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, 2003; Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002; EC, 2016c; LIBER, 2014). The libraries have indeed shown their capacity and willingness to be even more important contributors to the scientific process than before.

In order to be successful, we need to join different networks to build visions and gain inspiration as well as ensure the delivery of high-quality services, infrastructures and competence building for a transition towards open science. The Open Science and Research Initiative (ATT Initiative, 2016a), set out and funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, has been assigned this task at the national level in Finland. Joint actions by different networks can also yield unexpected results, as was the case with the publication of the dataset on the academic publishing costs of Finnish research organisations. Benchmarking with peers is another way to boost confidence in going forwards in each organisation, which is why the evaluations of the maturity level of the open science operating culture in Finnish HEIs will continue.

The ATT Initiative, which builds on previous work and was started in 2014, has already produced tangible results. For instance, Professor Sverker Holmgren, who prepared the report Open Access to Research Data – Status, Issues and Outlook for NordForsk, said the following: “We see from the Finnish example that it is possible to come far in a short period of time. If you have clear leadership, can set aside enough resources and engage the main stakeholders, you can work together towards a common goal.” (NordForsk, 2016).

Open science is a revolution in the way scientists work. For some, it can be a terrifying development. Based on our experiences, however, open dialogue on concerns and problems, joint production of services and infrastructures and increasing knowledge inspires and encourages people to move forwards. Although each and every research-performing organisation will need to address open science in its own strategies, only joint actions and working with different networks will ensure that open science is prudently incorporated into our scientific society.