Wide access to scientific research results has proven to be an important tool for accelerating scientific progress. An ad hoc committee under the Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI) will conduct a study on the challenges of broadening access to the results of scientific research, described as “open science.” Open science is defined, for the purposes of this study, as public access (i.e., no charge for access beyond the cost of an internet connection) to scholarly articles resulting from research projects, the data that support the results contained in those articles, computer code, algorithms, and other digital products of publicly funded scientific research, so that the products of this research are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), with limited exceptions for privacy, proprietary business claims, and national security. This study focuses on how to move toward open science as the default for scientific research results and includes the following tasks:

1. Provide a cursory overview of the extent to which scientific and engineering disciplines currently practice open science;
2. Identify the barriers to and facilitators of open science, such as cultural norms, incentives, service provider business models, policies, available infrastructure, education/training, and formal and informal data management processes, and illustrate these barriers and facilitators in at least four scientific disciplines from the biological sciences, social sciences, physical sciences, and earth sciences;
3. Describe how policies and practices of participants in the research enterprise, such as funders, publishers, journal editors, research institutions, scientific societies, researchers, service providers, and the private sector, are affecting open science;
4. Recommend specific solutions in policy, infrastructure, incentives and requirements that would facilitate open science;
5. Identify existing implementations of these solutions occurring in individual disciplines that could be extended to other disciplines (e.g., preprints), and demonstrations of proofs-of-concept that need to be brought to scale (e.g., preregistration for basic and preclinical research);
6. For potential solutions with no existing demonstrations, identify practical implementation steps, policies, and appropriate stakeholder roles to develop solutions;
7. Provide specific policy and practice options for Federal science agencies to move toward open science as the default for the research they support.

The committee will produce a consensus report with findings and recommendations that address these issues, with the majority of the focus on solutions that move the research enterprise toward open science.