CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: open science infrastructure

  • OpenAlex: The Case for Open Research Metrics

    OpenAlex is a free, CC0-licensed index of more than 319 million scholarly works, authors and institutions, built by the non-profit OurResearch to replace the discontinued Microsoft Academic Graph. For institutions weighing research-metrics platforms, its open data answers a question closed commercial indices cannot: who can audit the numbers behind an assessment decision.

    OpenAlex is a bibliographic catalogue of scientific papers, authors and institutions accessible in open-access mode, named after the Library of Alexandria. That single design choice — publishing the full dataset under a public-domain licence rather than behind a subscription wall — is what separates it structurally from Elsevier’s Scopus and Clarivate’s Web of Science, and why it has become a reference point in debates about research-assessment transparency.

    What Is OpenAlex?

    OpenAlex launched in January 2022, built by OurResearch (a US non-profit operating as Impactstory, Inc.) as a successor to the Microsoft Academic Graph, which Microsoft stopped updating on 31 December 2021. The project inherited MAG’s dataset and rebuilt it as an open, queryable graph of works, authors, institutions, funders, and topics.

    Two design decisions define the platform. First, the entire dataset is released under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence, meaning any institution, developer, or researcher can download, redistribute, and build on it without permission or cost. Second, OpenAlex has formally adopted the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI), a governance commitment covering sustainability, community control, and data portability.

    The scale is now substantial. OpenAlex’s own catalogue reports more than 319 million scholarly works, and its API handled roughly 115 million queries a month in 2024, according to figures cited in the platform’s Wikipedia entry. It draws source data from Crossref, ORCID, DOAJ, and Unpaywall rather than from a closed editorial pipeline.

    How Does OpenAlex Compare with Scopus and Web of Science?

    The practical difference is not just price — it is what each platform lets an institution verify. Scopus and Web of Science apply proprietary, selective journal-inclusion criteria and sell access to the resulting index. OpenAlex indexes broadly by default and publishes the inclusion logic as open code, which means an institution can inspect exactly why a work is or is not counted.

    Dimension OpenAlex Scopus (Elsevier) Web of Science (Clarivate)
    Governance Non-profit (OurResearch), POSI-aligned Commercial publisher Commercial data company
    Data licence CC0, fully open, bulk download Proprietary, licensed access only Proprietary, licensed access only
    Core journal metric No proprietary journal metric CiteScore (four-year citation average) Journal Impact Factor
    Coverage approach Broad, automated aggregation, strong Diamond OA and non-English coverage Curated, selective journal list Curated, selective journal list
    Cost to institutions Free API; optional paid support tier Subscription Subscription

    CiteScore, Scopus’s flagship journal metric, averages the citations a journal’s documents receive over a four-year window — a useful signal, but one calculated entirely inside a closed system that institutions cannot independently reproduce. OpenAlex does not publish an equivalent branded journal score; instead it exposes the underlying citation and work-level data so that any bibliometrician can calculate their own indicator and show their working.

    Coverage differences matter for equity as much as accuracy. A 2024 study cited in OpenAlex’s Wikipedia entry found the platform indexes more than 12,500 Diamond Open Access journal titles, including over 60% of Diamond OA journals absent from both Web of Science and Scopus — a direct consequence of not gating inclusion behind a commercial selection committee.

    Why Does Open Metrics Infrastructure Serve DORA’s Transparency Principle?

    The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), first published in 2012, asks funders, institutions, and publishers to stop substituting journal-based proxies for direct evaluation of research and to be explicit about the criteria used in funding, hiring, and promotion decisions. That explicitness requirement is where the platform choice stops being neutral.

    A closed index can tell an institution that a number was calculated a certain way, but it cannot let that institution independently verify how, because the underlying citation graph is licensed, not published. An open metadata layer removes that opacity: the same dataset an institution cites in a tenure file or a funding report can be downloaded, re-run, and checked by anyone, including the researcher being assessed.

    Adoption evidence has followed the argument. Leiden University announced in September 2023 that it would produce an open-source edition of its CWTS Leiden Ranking using OpenAlex data from 2024 onward. Sorbonne University announced in December 2023 that it was withdrawing its Scopus subscription in favour of OpenAlex. In 2024, France’s Ministry of Higher Education and Research pledged financial support to the project, describing it as “crucial open science infrastructure,” and the Arcadia Fund awarded OurResearch a $7.5 million grant explicitly to build OpenAlex into a sustainable alternative to commercial citation indices.

    • Leiden University: open-source CWTS Leiden Ranking edition built on OpenAlex data (from 2024)
    • Sorbonne University: Scopus subscription withdrawn in favour of OpenAlex (December 2023)
    • French Ministry of Higher Education and Research: financial commitment to OpenAlex as open science infrastructure (2024)
    • Arcadia Fund: $7.5 million grant to OurResearch for OpenAlex sustainability (March 2024)

    None of this means closed indices lack value; their curated selection and mature analytics tooling still suit some high-stakes evaluations. But where the explicit requirement is transparency rather than convenience, an auditable, CC0-licensed data layer meets DORA’s stated principle more directly than a licensed black box.

    Common Questions About OpenAlex

    What is OpenAlex used for?

    Universities, funders, and publishers use OpenAlex to track publication output, measure open-access status, benchmark institutional performance, and feed alternative rankings such as the open-source CWTS Leiden Ranking. Its free API also underpins third-party dashboards, systematic-review tools, and research-information systems that need citation and affiliation data without a subscription fee.

    Is OpenAlex legit?

    Yes. OpenAlex is maintained by OurResearch, a non-profit with a multi-year record of building open scholarly infrastructure, and it has formally adopted the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI). Its data and methodology are openly licensed and auditable, and the platform is already cited in peer-reviewed scientometrics research, including a 2022 arXiv paper by its founders.

    Is OpenAlex free?

    Yes. The full dataset is released under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) public-domain licence, and the REST API can be queried without a subscription, unlike Scopus or Web of Science. A polite-pool rate limit applies to unauthenticated use, and OurResearch offers an optional paid support tier for high-volume institutional queries.

    Who owns OpenAlex?

    OpenAlex is created and maintained by OurResearch, a US-based non-profit operating as Impactstory, Inc., not by a commercial publisher. Governance sits with a mission-driven organisation rather than a shareholder-owned company — the structural distinction that underpins its CC0 licensing and its appeal to institutions pursuing publisher-independent, DORA-aligned metrics.

    What Should Institutional Leaders Do Next?

    Platform choice is now a governance decision, not just a procurement one. An institution that cites OpenAlex data in a promotion case, a funding report, or an open-access dashboard is making a transparency claim as well as a metrics claim, and that claim should be tested before it is relied upon.

    • Map which existing assessment workflows (tenure, funding reports, rankings submissions) rely on a metric an evaluator cannot independently reproduce.
    • Pilot OpenAlex alongside — not instead of — existing subscriptions, comparing coverage gaps directly against Scopus or Web of Science outputs for your own institutional corpus.
    • Document data provenance explicitly in assessment criteria, consistent with DORA’s requirement for stated, auditable methodology.
    • Track POSI-aligned infrastructure commitments (OpenAlex, CrossRef, ORCID, ROR) as the durable layer beneath any commercial tool an institution also chooses to license.

    Open, non-proprietary metadata will not replace every function a commercial index performs today. But as funders and assessment reformers keep pressing for auditable evidence over proprietary scores, institutions that already understand — and can reproduce — their own metrics will be the ones best placed to defend them.

  • European Open Science Cloud: What Works in 2026

    The European Open Science Cloud is a European Commission-backed federation of research data infrastructures, and in 2026 it offers institutions a genuinely operational access point — the EOSC EU Node, launched October 2024 — alongside FAIR-data cataloguing and compute services, while long-term governance, funding beyond Horizon Europe, and full national-node coverage remain unresolved. That split between what is live and what is still roadmap matters for any institution deciding whether to connect a repository.

    The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is a European Commission initiative to federate existing research data infrastructures across Europe into a single “web of FAIR data and services” for science. It is not a single platform an institution simply signs up to; it is a governance framework and a growing network of interoperable nodes and service providers.

    Contents

    What is the European Open Science Cloud, in practice?

    EOSC exists to make research data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable — the FAIR principles first codified for research infrastructures in the mid-2010s. Rather than building one central repository, the European Commission’s approach federates existing national, thematic and institutional infrastructures under shared technical and governance rules.

    That federated design is deliberate. It means an institution’s own repository can, in principle, remain where it is and keep its own operator, while becoming discoverable and interoperable through the EOSC layer above it.

    What EOSC actually offers institutions in 2026

    The clearest operational fact for 2026 is the EOSC EU Node, procured by the European Commission and launched in October 2024 as the first live node of the EOSC Federation. It functions as both a working service point and the reference implementation that other national and thematic nodes are built against.

    Through the EU Node and its federated providers, institutions and their researchers can currently access:

    • A federated catalogue of datasets, publications and software drawn from connected repositories across Europe
    • Compute and storage services, including virtual machines and bulk data transfer
    • File sync-and-share and large-file-transfer tools for cross-border collaboration
    • Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructure (AAI) allowing researchers to use institutional credentials across connected services
    • An Interoperability Framework defining the metadata and technical standards a repository must meet to be discoverable

    Two governance documents anchor this offer. The Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) 1.3, finalised by the EOSC community in October 2024, sets the technical and thematic priorities the EU Node and future nodes are built to. The EOSC Association — an international non-profit under Belgian law — coordinates that community input and represents institutional and researcher stakeholders in the process.

    Federation growth is measurable rather than theoretical. The European Commission’s EOSC programme page reports that fourteen new candidate nodes joined the EOSC Federation in the most recent expansion round, extending thematic and geographic coverage beyond the original EU Node.

    What EOSC doesn’t offer yet

    The single biggest change institutions need to register is that the old EOSC Portal has been decommissioned. Its own site now states plainly that “the EOSC Portal is no longer available,” redirecting visitors to the EU Node as its replacement. Any integration plan, documentation or bookmark referencing the Portal is out of date.

    Three further items remain aspirational rather than delivered:

    Area Operational now Still in progress
    Access point EOSC EU Node (live since Oct 2024) Full national-node coverage across all Member States
    Funding model Horizon Europe co-funding to 2027 Post-Horizon Europe financing not yet settled
    Governance Tripartite Commission–Steering Board–Association structure Long-term operational governance after current funding framework
    Security & trust Opinion papers setting direction (Nov–Dec 2025) Implemented FAIR-object certification and intrusion protection

    On funding and governance, the EOSC Tripartite Governance body — Commission, EOSC Steering Board and EOSC Association — states it is “addressing options for the governance, operations and financing of EOSC after the end of the current funding framework.” That is an open question, not a settled one, and institutions budgeting multi-year integration work should treat it as such.

    On security, the EOSC Steering Board published an opinion paper in November 2025 on quality assessment of FAIR objects and protection from intrusion and data pollution, and a further paper in December 2025 on strengthening European sovereignty in research data. Both set direction; neither describes a deployed certification system institutions can rely on today.

    Who governs EOSC — and should your institution connect?

    EOSC runs on tripartite governance: the European Commission, the EOSC Steering Board (EU Member States and Horizon Europe-associated countries), and the EOSC Association (the research community’s representative body). This group typically meets twice yearly to review implementation progress and set strategic direction, most recently reaffirming EOSC as a priority action of the European Research Area’s 2025–2027 policy agenda.

    For an institution, connecting means one of two routes: registering a repository or service as an EOSC provider through the EU Node’s Service Provider Dashboard, or joining an existing (or forming a new) national or thematic node to participate in governance directly. Either route requires meeting the Interoperability Framework’s metadata and access standards before onboarding — this is not a passive listing exercise.

    Institutions already running Horizon Europe-funded projects have a practical head start: Horizon Europe’s data management plan requirements already mandate FAIR-compliant data handling, so a repository built to satisfy an existing Horizon Europe DMP is largely pre-aligned with EOSC’s technical expectations.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What is the European Open Science Cloud?

    The European Open Science Cloud is a European Commission initiative that federates existing European research data infrastructures into a single interoperable environment. It is governed jointly by the Commission, national representatives on the EOSC Steering Board, and the EOSC Association, rather than owned or operated by any single body.

    Is the EOSC Portal still available in 2026?

    No. The EOSC Portal has been decommissioned and its site now directs visitors to the EOSC EU Node, launched in October 2024, as its operational successor. Institutions should update any documentation, bookmarks or integration guides that still reference the old Portal address.

    How does an institution join the EOSC Federation?

    An institution can register a repository as a service provider through the EU Node’s Service Provider Dashboard, or join or form a national or thematic EOSC node. Both routes require meeting the EOSC Interoperability Framework’s metadata and access standards before the resource is listed as discoverable.

    Who runs the EOSC Association?

    The EOSC Association is an international non-profit organisation under Belgian law, representing the research community within EOSC’s tripartite governance. It coordinates community input into the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda and advocates for institutional and researcher priorities to the Commission and Steering Board.

    Implications for research administrators

    Treat the EU Node as the current baseline, not the Portal, when budgeting integration effort or referencing EOSC in institutional policy or funder compliance documents. Confirm whether relevant national research bodies already operate a candidate node — joining an existing thematic node is typically faster than seeking direct EU Node registration.

    Because post-2027 financing is unresolved, institutions should avoid framing EOSC connection as a one-off compliance task. Build it as an ongoing relationship that will need re-scoping once the tripartite governance body settles a long-term funding model.

    The bottom line

    EOSC in 2026 is a working federation, not a finished one. The EU Node, the Interoperability Framework and a growing roster of federated services are real and usable today; the funding model, full national coverage and formal security certification are still being negotiated. Institutions that plan around that distinction — connecting through the EU Node or an existing node now, while budgeting for governance change later — will get genuine value without overcommitting to infrastructure still in development.