Open Science

The shift towards open innovation has substantially changed the scientific and practical perception of corporate innovation. While scientific studies on open innovation are burgeoning, present research underlies a business-centric view that has focused on the back-end of the innovation process. The impact and implications of open innovation on academic and industrial science at the very front-end of the innovation process have so far been neglected. Our paper presents a conceptualization of open science and research as a peculiarity under the roof of open innovation. We propose four perspectives, outline current trends, and present directions for future developments.

7 Research Questions

We have identified a number of research questions on this topic:

• Higher acceptance. Open science is a popular topic but the general acceptance is still lacking. How can that be changed?
• New measurements. Todayʹs measurement of scientific impact is mostly based on journal impact factor. This is a rather slow, closed and biased by social group effects. How could new impact measurements be designed?
• Virtual knowledge creation. With the use of the Internet, new forms of sharing and generating knowledge came to light that led to new challenges: how can collective generated knowledge be published?
• Quality assurance of scientific content. The successful opening of science presupposes explicit measures for quality assurance with respect to content. Considering the rise of open science platforms, decisions about user authorizations and access rights have to be made. How do new forms of evaluation and review systems that secure rigorousness of research look like?
• Accelerating interdisciplinary science. Based on open science platforms, unrestricted navigation across different subject areas and scientific disciplines leads to new ways on how and what kind of existing knowledge is reviewed. What is the impact of new search and language processing technologies on the creation of new interdisciplinary insights?
• Outsourcing research by SME. Within an economy, SME present the largest number of companies. The effects of an open paradigm of science and research on how SME can benefit from collaborative research with academic institution have not been investigated: what are success factors? How are collaboration processes characterized? What are relevant intermediaries and platforms for the matchmaking between research and SME?
• IP trade. The tradability of knowledge in form of IP is a catalyst for opening up science and research. Efficient market places for IP might lead to more open approaches in research, as they will give more guidance in patent valuation. Furthermore, possible negative consequences of an open trade of IP — e.g., effects of patent trolls on value creation — have to be investigated in more detail. How can IP be made more tradable?