Open Science, Paul David, and the commons

How can we address the complexity and cost of applying science to societal challenges? Open science and collaborative R&D may help [1]–[3]. Open science has been described as “a research accelerator” [4]. Open science implies open access [5] but goes beyond it: “Imagine a connected online web of scientific knowledge that integrates and connects data, computer code, chains of scientific reasoning, descriptions of open problems, and beyond …. tightly integrated with a scientific social web that directs scientists' attention where it is most valuable, releasing enormous collaborative potential.” [1]. Open science and collaborative approaches are often described as open source, by analogy with open-source software such as the operating system Linux which powers Google and Amazon—collaboratively created software which is free to use and adapt, and popular for Internet infrastructure and scientific research [6], [7]. However, this use of “open source” is unclear. Some people use “open source” when a project's results are free to use, others when a project's process is highly collaborative [4]. It is clearer to classify open source and open science within a broader class of collaborative R&D, which can be defined as scalable collaboration (usually enabled by information technology) across organizational boundaries to solve R&D challenges [8]. Many approaches to open science and collaborative R&D have been tried [1], [9]. The Gene Wiki has created over 10,000 Wikipedia articles, and aims to provide one for every notable human gene [10]. The crowdsourcing platform InnoCentive has reportedly facilitated solutions to roughly half of the thousands of technical problems posed on the site, including many in life sciences such as the $1 million ALS Biomarker Prize [11]. Other examples include prizes (X-Prize [12]), scientific games (FoldIt [13]), and licensing schemes inspired by open-source software (BIOS [14]). Collaborative R&D approaches vary in openness [15]. In some approaches, the R&D process and outputs are open to all—for example, open-science projects like the Gene Wiki described above. In other approaches which demonstrate what might be called controlled collaboration, there are strong controls on who contributes and benefits—for example, computational platforms like Collaborative Drug Discovery or InnoCentive that support both commercial and nonprofit research [9], [11]. Collaborative approaches can unleash innovation from unforeseen sources, as with crowdsourcing health technologies [11]–[13], [16]. They may help in global challenges like drug development [17], as with India's OSDD (Open Source Drug Discovery) project that recruited over 7,000 volunteers [16] and an open-source drug synthesis project that improved an existing drug without increasing its cost [18]. If you want to apply open science and collaborative R&D, what principles are useful? We suggest Ten Simple Rules for Cultivating Open Science and Collaborative R&D. We also offer eight conversational interviews exploring life experiences that led to these rules (Box 1). Box 1. Conversations on Open Science and Collaborative R&D Many commentators have considered challenges in translating open science and collaborative methods to biomedical research [2]–[4], [9], [17], [20], [24], [26], [28], [29]. How can protecting intellectual property be balanced with freeing researchers to build on previous knowledge? If R&D results are collaboratively created and freely available, who will take responsibility for costly clinical trials and quality control? What will be the Linux of open-source R&D? To explore such challenges and convey life experiences in biomedical open science and collaborative R&D, we offer eight conversational interviews by the first author of this article as supplementary material. The conversations were done on behalf of the Results for Development Institute and are with: Alph Bingham, cofounder of InnoCentive (Text S1) Barry Bunin, CEO of Collaborative Drug Discovery (Text S2) Leslie Chan, open access pioneer and director of Bioline International (Text S3) Aled Edwards, director of the Structural Genomics Consortium (Text S4) Benjamin Good, coleader of the Gene Wiki initiative (Text S5) Bernard Munos, pharmaceutical innovation thought leader (Text S6) Zakir Thomas, director of India's Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) project (Text S7) Matt Todd, open science and drug development pioneer (Text S8)

Background The potential for intellectual property (IP) and open science (OS) to be used together for knowledge valorisation is increasingly discussed within research policy, yet their practical alignment remains limited. While researchers and research managers often regard IP and OS as potentially complementary, uncertainty persists about how to integrate them effectively in real-world contexts. Methods To explore current perceptions and practices, a cross-sectional online survey was conducted, yielding 177 valid responses from individuals involved in research and research management across a range of research-performing organisations, primarily within Europe. Results Although respondents were generally optimistic about the possibility of combining IP and OS, concrete examples of successful synergy remain rare. A lack of clear institutional guidance, limited awareness of open licensing mechanisms, and uncertainty about concurrent implementation were identified as key barriers. In collaborative projects, especially those involving multiple partners, differing objectives further complicate efforts to coordinate IP and OS strategies. National differences in legal frameworks across EU member states were also seen as an obstacle to synergy. The roles of knowledge transfer offices and OS ambassadors were highlighted as particularly important for supporting researchers in navigating complex decisions about licensing and compliance. However, sustained engagement with these actors remains inconsistent. Conclusions To enable greater complementarity between IP and OS, early agreement on approaches within project management is essential. Researchers would benefit from targeted training to enhance understanding of open licensing tools and practical considerations. In addition, policy measures such as recognising OS contributions in academic career evaluation and introducing grace periods for patent filing could provide valuable support. These steps may assist institutions in managing the balance between openness and protection more effectively, encouraging broader and more confident application of both frameworks in practice. The study’s findings should be interpreted with caution due to the small, purposive sample and potential response bias, which may limit generalisability.

Financial conflicts of interest, several cases of scientific fraud, and research limitations from strong intellectual property laws have all led to questioning the epistemic and social justice appropriateness of industry-funded research. At first sight, the ideal of Open Science, which promotes transparency, sharing, collaboration, and accountability, seems to target precisely the type of limitations uncovered in commercially-driven research. The Open Science movement, however, has primarily focused on publicly funded research, has actively encouraged liaisons with the private sector, and has also created new strategies for commercializing science. As a consequence, I argue that Open Science ends up contributing to the commercialization of science, instead of overcoming its limitations. I use the examples of research publications and citizen science to illustrate this point. Accordingly, the asymmetry between private and public science, present in the current plea to open science, ends up compromising the values of transparency, democracy, and accountability.

ONS and Intellectual Property

To ensure the widest possible dissemination of research results to the academic community, pharmaceutical industry, patients and to the broader public, the EU-funded drug repurposing project REPO4EU is committed to an Open Science approach. Because Open Science can be interpreted widely, this document lays out the strategy of the project with regard to Open Access publishing, alternative metrics, intellectual property and FAIR data, in line with the goals of the European Commission. The Open Science Strategy forms the theoretical framework for the REPO4EU Open Science publishing portal that will develop into an open hub of research results and communication for the entire drug repurposing community.

Biomedical data underpins scientific discovery, and open science offers the potential to accelerate innovation through the unrestricted sharing of knowledge, methodologies, and datasets. However, the open science dilemma persists, as researchers hesitate to share data due to privacy concerns, intellectual property risks, and lack of recognition. Stringent data privacy regulations further compound these challenges, limiting data sharing. To address these barriers, we propose the Cryptographic Open Science (COS) framework, integrating advanced technologies for secure, privacy-preserving, and incentivized data sharing. Blockchain technology provides immutable records of data ownership and usage, enhancing transparency and trust, while smart contracts automate access controls and enforce compliance. However, blockchain alone does not prevent loss of control over plaintext data once released. COS incorporates Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) to allow computations on encrypted data, ensuring end-to-end confidentiality and maintaining full ownership control. Recognizing that privacy alone does not incentivize sharing, COS introduces a crypto token-based system to create a market-driven flywheel. This system rewards contributors and aligns stakeholder interests, promoting active data sharing. By integrating blockchain, FHE, and token-based incentives, COS bridges the gap between the ideals of open science and the practical concerns of data providers, accelerating progress in fields like precision medicine and genomics.

This Article examines the -symbiotic relationship between copyright and contract law. The intellectual property bargain, or the delicate balance that allegedly exists in current intellectual property law, cannot be seen merely as a matter of a balance stated in property law rules. An interaction between intellectual property and contract has always been a primary characteristic of intellectual property distributed in the open market and that interaction is central to whatever balance has been achieved. When one speaks about an existing balance in the property rights sector, it is futile to focus solely on the statutory provisions of the copyright, patent or trademark laws. One must, of necessity, understand and incorporate the fact that the policy choice has always assumed that property rights are routinely transferred, waived, released, and licensed. Only the most naive observer, or one with a clear political agenda, can look at the intellectual property laws and their history and suggest that policy in the property sphere trumps or precludes the influence of contract. In contractual relationships, underlying property rights are often relatively unimportant. They provide rules that state a legal position that exists between the contracting parties unless the parties otherwise agree. Contract law provides other default rules. In the digital world, the contract rather than the underlying property law defines the product. This being said, however, there are some settings in which contract law, intellectual property, or competition law place limits on the ability to enforce some contract terms. This Article explores some of these areas and describes their limited role in modem commerce.

This article reads the educational implications of ‘intellectual property’ that are found in the double meaning of property, as the word refers to an economic right and a quality of being. It briefly visits the seventeenth-century origins of this double concept of intellectual property (IP), with particular attention paid to John Locke (who provides the basis of IP as a personal possession as well as furthering the idea of a ‘common-wealth of learning’) and the emergence of ‘open science’. The argument proceeds on two levels, educational and public, as it draws parallels between the way that students are taught to regard learning and the way in which a knowledge-based global economy treats learning. On the first level, that of the personal, the article puts forward a critique of the common educational tendency to treat learning as a private good, in terms of personal asset management, which ultimately undermines the common-wealth of learning and the idea of knowledge as a public good. On the second level, that of the public sphere, the article turns to the increasing privatization and capitalization of knowledge that is making inroads into the common-wealth of learning, particularly around publicly funded research and scholarship. The article considers the prospects, finally, of ‘open’ responses (e.g. open access, open source, etc.) to reassert the vital role of the common-wealth, through new technologies of knowledge sharing, and it considers the educational policy implications of preparing a new generation of students who, as they are prepared to participate in knowledge-based economies, should also understand the implications of sustaining the common-wealth of learning.

Purpose This paper aims to evaluate how critical thinking be integrated in intellectual property (IP) law teaching. Design/methodology/approach It used doctrinal methods based on existing pedagogical scholarship in the field of effective teaching and learning at the university level. Findings It demonstrated how the use of critical thinking in IP law education could facilitate deeper understanding of IP law issues from different socio-economic, environmental, historical and political dimensions. Research limitations/implications It is yet to be tested for practical application in other jurisdictions and students having background from diverse socio-economic and cultural settings. Practical implications The application of critical thinking in IP law could help students to apply IP law from practical perspectives to meet societal objectives and business interests as well. Social implications This will facilitate in broader societal understanding in using IP law to achieve sustainable development goals. Originality/value Till date, little work has been undertaken on the use of critical thinking in IP law teaching. Therefore, this study tried to make a unique contribution to incorporate critical thinking in IP law education.

<p>Open Science, as we commonly define it, has grown steadily over the past two to three decades, thanks to the proliferation of electronic data and information, as well as ease of access to computers with high speed Internet connectivity. What began as a mechanism to share the products of our scientific research has evolved into a global movement involving journal article manuscripts, source code, copyright, access, and intellectual property negotiations, digital repositories, cloud-based tools, and data in a variety of formats.<br><br>This presentation will briefly define Open Science, and enumerate and describe common elements of Open Science through a brief history of the movement. It will also touch on both triumphs and challenges faced by proponents, discuss the role of professional publishers, aggregators, and other traditional gatekeepers, and will propose scenarios for the future of the movement. Questions, anecdotes, vexations, and suggestions from attendees are welcomed at the end of the presentation, with the goal of generate deeper discussion around the future and sustainability of Open Science. </p>

Participatory Research, including Citizen Science and other forms of co-created research, have lately been exciting considerable interest; and rightly so. These new additions to the Open Science landscape address a number of institutional and funder concerns around, for example, the impact of scholarly research. Further, collaborations between academic and non-academic researchers have the potential to address many of the deeper concerns of Open Science professionals, around transparency and accessibility, for example. Recognising the importance of this and the need for institutional support, in 2023, the University of Edinburgh created the first library role dedicated to Participatory Research in the UK. Growing interest and investment in Participatory Research has, inevitably, thrown up challenges for those of us working in Open Science. Among the more ethically and legally complex questions are those concerning intellectual property rights relating to research data. Ownership of research data may be relatively straightforward when the collaborators are professional researchers at recognised research institutions. When those collaborators are themselves the collectors and creators, sometimes the actual subjects, of the data, however, the situation becomes significantly more complicated. We no longer have one seemingly simple question – who owns the data – but rather a cluster of rather more difficult ones. What does ownership mean to non-professional and professional researchers and how does it play out in practice? What are the different motivations and expectations at work here? And how can all this be documented and implemented in a way that is fair to all the parties involved? The contracts commonly employed in ordinary academic collaborations are unlikely to be of use here, not least because legal and quasi-legal instruments tend less towards mitigating power differentials and more to enforcing them. They may also represent a barrier to vulnerable and marginalised communities, thereby discouraging the very involvement that is being sought. Evidently, then, the question goes beyond legal rights, encompassing a range of important ethical issues around control, access, and re-use of data. Given the complexities of intellectual property rights in general and these issues in particular, the fact that the University of Edinburgh does not, as yet, have any definite guidelines for researchers and their collaborators will come as no surprise. This presentation aims to lay the groundwork for those guidelines within the context of Open Science: firstly, by identifying and unpacking the ethical issues arising from different understandings of ownership; secondly, by proposing a theoretical foundation; thirdly by considering some practical options for addressing them.

This chapter explores the challenges of digitally preserving Indigenous Knowledge (IK) within the Open Science Framework, highlighting conflicts between IK's communal nature and principles of openness. Key challenges include ethical dilemmas (consent, ownership, cultural misrepresentation), technological barriers (limited infrastructure, rapid obsolescence), and legal issues (intellectual property laws vs. traditional knowledge). It addresses cultural sensitivities (respecting protocols, community resistance) and resource constraints (financial limitations, shortage of trained personnel). The 7C model (Co-design, Conceptualisation, Collection, Correction, Curation, Circulation, Creation) is proposed to navigate these complexities. The chapter advocates for community-led, culturally respectful approaches to ensure IK preservation while aligning with Open Science ideals.

The effect of European Union law on intellectual property (IP) law in the United Kingdom has been profound. There is no area of IP law that does not feature EU legislation or CJEU case law. In fact, it may be the most ‘Europeanised’ area of private law. For this reason, ‘Brexit’ will undoubtedly have a massive impact on the current IP framework in the UK. A clear picture of the post-Brexit IP landscape, however, can only be drawn once we know the outcome of the negotiations pursuant to the Article 50 TEU procedure. Our intention with this chapter is to give an overview of the current state of play in terms of EU law's impact on IP law, and to consider the most likely outcome of Brexit on IP law in the UK.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming intellectual property rights (IPR) by challenging conventional notions of authorship and inventorship in copyright and patent laws, both globally and in Pakistan. Governed by statutes such as the Copyright Ordinance, 1962, Patents Ordinance, 2000, and the Intellectual Property Organization of Pakistan Act, 2012, Pakistan's IPR framework lacks specific provisions for AI-generated content, leading to uncertainties in protection and enforcement. This article explores AI's impact on copyright and patents, the WTO's role through the TRIPS Agreement, IPR dynamics in Pakistan's pharmaceutical and fashion industries, digital enforcement challenges under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (PECA), the economic aspects of IPR, and its role in Open Access and Open Science. Drawing from Pakistani case studies like EMI (Pakistan) Ltd v. Muhammad Ali (PLD 1984 Lah. 53) for copyright infringement and Novartis AG v. Highnoon Laboratories Ltd. (PLD 2020 SC 692) for patents, it identifies a key problem statement: the absence of AI-specific regulations in Pakistani IP laws creates legal ambiguities, stifling innovation and access. The research gap lies in the limited empirical studies on AI-IPR intersections in Pakistan, particularly in emerging sectors. Proposed solutions include amending ordinances to define AI authorship, enhancing IPO-Pakistan's guidelines, and leveraging TRIPS flexibilities for a national AI-IP policy. This 10-page analysis (approximately 5000 words) advocates for balanced reforms to foster innovation while ensuring equitable access in Pakistan's developing economy.

This paper reports the findings of a comparative study of course syllabus of the universities from four countries that teach Intellectual property (IP) law and innovation to engineering undergraduates. Several international studies report that the extent of IP law and innovation being taught at undergraduate level is currently very limited and most engineering students have low level of knowledge and awareness on the application of of IP law into innovation. Hence, the need to develop a course syllabus that integrates IP law and innovation to prepare engineering undergraduates in the creative and innovative economy. This study compared the course syllabus of universities that offer IP law and innovation course to engineering undergraduates. The scope of comparison are the course objectives, course learning outcomes, course description, syllabus content, teaching methodology and course assessment. The findings from the comparative study help to provide an insight towards the development of IP law and innovation course syllabus for engineering undergraduates of Universiti Teknologi MARA.