Strategy and Policies on OS at IBEC - Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia

APPROVED POLICIES

IBEC mission and vision, includes values related to OS:
- Responsibility (Scientific and social): Responsibility is a commitment to the profession and thus acting according to principles of good faith, integrity, honesty, and transparent communication, […].
- Openness: Externally, openness means explaining, making things understood, and establishing a trusting relationship with partners, employees, and society, acting openly and accurately in the delivery and communication of both scientific and non-scientific results. Internally, openness ensures the consistency and consequence of our own decisions, identifying a frame of reference that enables understanding.

Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, among others, it sets criteria on: Publications and scientific Communications (Obligation to scientific communication, Open access) and Data management.

Open Science policy: The Open Science policy establishes the way how IBEC will manage its practices, enabling new working models and new social relationships, stimulating the dissemination of knowledge and the accessibility and re-usability of research outputs, encouraging open access to publications and data, and building the necessary infrastructure, skills, rewards and incentives to support open science.

Research data management policy: General framework for the management of the research data produced by IBEC. The policy intends to reaffirm the institution’s commitment with open science, specifically in making its research data as open as possible and as closed as necessary, following FAIR principles to make it findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable for the whole community.

Charter and Code (human resources strategy): In April 2015 IBEC was awarded the “HR Excellence in Research” award from the European Commission. The Action Plan 2021-2024 of The Human Resources Strategy for Researchers (HRS4R) includes the action Ethics: Open Science.
IBEC Action Plan on Reforming Research Assessment 2023-2027. CoARA Agreement: IBEC signed on April 2023 the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment and became member of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). The signature of this agreement is aligned with the values of the institution by recognizing the diversity of the contributions to research, relying on qualitative evaluation for research quality assessment. This signature is also in line with the involvement of IBEC in Open Science. As a signatory of the Agreement, IBEC shares this 5-year Action Plan to review and develop criteria, tools, and processes to achieve the core Commitments to reform research assessment issues in the institution.

At the end of March 2023, IBEC signed the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) which has 18 points, with the first one as a general recommendation:

Do not use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.

IBEC entered April 2023 the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), promoted by the European Commission, and is fully involved to participate in and implement it’s achievements.

BODIES RELATED WITH OS

Commission for Research Integrity:

The Commission for Research Integrity is a body with a double role: on the one hand it has an advisory role; on the other, it makes decisions on misconduct cases. Its main responsibilities are:

To promote and safeguard good research practice at IBEC.
To promote awareness and training for researchers at all career stages.
To monitor compliance with the Code and update it regularly.
To deal with allegations of research misconduct.
To follow up the Open Science strategy.

Commission for Open Science

The Commission is responsible for supporting and establishing an Open Science culture and strategy at IBEC, advising the board on best orientation and institutional practice on Open Science to achieve its goals and the funders requirements. It has the following functions:

Policy and strategy: Development of an Open Science policy and recommendations for establishing open science as the default research at IBEC.
Implementation: Monitor its implementation and assess the needs, expectations, and suggestions of researchers on Open Science.
Promotion: Disseminate institutional policies and services, and general trends on Open Science.
Training: Encourage initiatives and commitment to OS, providing training and support.

Members of the Comission (since 23rd March 2023):

Santiago Marco	Group leader (Signal and Info. Proc. for Sensing Sys.)
Nuria Montserrat	Group leader (Pluripotency for organ regeneration)
Silvia Muro	Group leader (Targeted therapeutics and nanodevices)
Jordi Comelles	Senior researcher (Biomimetic systems for cell engineering)
Alba Herrero	PhD student (Molecular Imaging for Precision Medicine)
Josep Samitier	Director
Sergi Camacho	Managing Director
Teresa Sanchis	Head of Strategy
Carolina Marí	Head of Human Resources
Juli Bafaluy	Head of the IT Unit
Pilar Jiménez	Head of Communications
Eirini Pantazi	Project Office PM
Martina Giovannella	Tech Transfer officer
Teresa Galán	Core Facilities officer
Fidel Bellmunt	Strategic Initiatives Knowledge Manager

IBEC OPEN REPOSITORIES

IBEC Open Institutional Repositories

Repositories used by IBEC as institutional reference deposits for its open scientific outputs. Not all IBECs open resources are in these repositories, they may be in another ones.

Open Publications (Open Access)

Dipòsit Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona: http://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/handle/2445/65293

Open Data

CORA.RDR Repositori de Dades de Recerca
(Catalan Open Research Area by CSUC: Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya): https://dataverse.csuc.cat/dataverse/IBEC