The OS10 Programme itself is an ambitious undertaking with an unusually high-level pedigree. Initiated under the leadership of Professor Wei Yang, a Chinese scientist and Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the programme carries the full title Towards Open Science Infrastructure Sharing Network: Knowledge and Data Sharing Platform from China. It received official endorsement from UNESCO in February 2025, placing it squarely within the guiding framework of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, the landmark 2021 instrument that defined shared principles for making research publications, data, software, and hardware openly available. The programme is also aligned with the strategic plan of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development, the United Nations designated Science Decade intended to mobilise scientific cooperation for global development goals.

Institutionally, the programme is structured as a distributed collaboration rather than a single centralised project. The National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Zhejiang University serve as the liaison and supporting institutions, handling coordination and operational support, while the CAST-UN Consultative Committee on Open Science and Global Partnership, known as CCOS, acts as the lead organisation. This arrangement reflects a broader philosophy within the open science community: that infrastructure for sharing knowledge should itself be shared, with responsibilities distributed across institutions and regions rather than concentrated in any one country or consortium. The new memorandum between NSL and PLOS extends that philosophy by bringing a major international publisher directly into the programme’s development.

Under the terms of the agreement, the two parties will explore cooperation across several concrete areas. These include the sharing of scientific research outputs and open science resources, the development of the technical architecture that underpins the OS10 platform, and open science capacity-building in regions that participate in the programme. PLOS may also join relevant OS10 working groups, contributing expertise to resource coordination, technical standards, and service design. For PLOS, a non-profit publisher that has spent two decades experimenting with open access business models, the memorandum offers a channel to test its ideas within a large-scale, internationally endorsed infrastructure initiative. For the Chinese institutions, it brings in a partner with deep experience in peer review reform, open licensing, and the practical mechanics of running scholarly publishing at scale.

Capacity-building receives particular emphasis in the memorandum. The two organisations plan to strengthen open science skills and institutional readiness in China and in other OS10 participant regions through training programmes, workshops, community engagement activities, and international exchange. This focus addresses one of the most persistent gaps in the open science landscape: the divide between institutions that have the technical staff, policies, and funding to share research openly and those that lack such capacity. Training librarians, data managers, and researchers in low-resource settings is widely seen as essential if global open science is to be genuinely inclusive rather than an advantage enjoyed only by well-funded institutions in North America, Europe, and East Asia.

The memorandum also opens the door to connecting OS10 with the outcomes of PLOS’s Redefining Publishing initiative, an ongoing effort by the publisher to reimagine the mechanisms of scholarly communication, and to expanding cooperation on open science policy and practice more broadly. The intersection is significant. Publishing reform and infrastructure development are often pursued on separate tracks, with publishers experimenting in their journals while infrastructure projects build repositories and platforms. A formal channel between a major open access publisher and a UNESCO-endorsed infrastructure programme creates the possibility of aligning those tracks, so that innovations tested in publishing workflows can inform the design of shared platforms, and vice versa.

OS10 is not starting from zero. The programme has already delivered three milestones that illustrate its scope. The first is the launch of the Open4Science platform, accessible at open4science.cn, which provides access to more than 100 million open science and technology resources and has already reached users in 105 countries. That scale matters: a discovery layer that aggregates open publications, datasets, and tools from many sources can dramatically lower the barrier for researchers who would otherwise need to search dozens of disconnected repositories. The platform’s reach across more than half the world’s countries suggests substantial demand for such aggregation, particularly in regions where national open science infrastructure is still nascent.

The second milestone is the development of the International Specification for Open Knowledge and Data Sharing and Application, a standards document intended to advance international collaboration and the sharing of open science infrastructures. Technical standards are the unglamorous backbone of any sharing network. Without agreed specifications for how metadata is described, how licences are declared, and how datasets are exchanged, even the most well-intentioned platforms remain islands. A specification developed with international participation and endorsed through a programme of this stature could serve as a common reference point for institutions building compatible systems, much as shared protocols underpinned the growth of the early web.

The third milestone is the release of the Open Science Readiness Index, or OSRI, together with its associated monitoring platform. The index maps open science development and trends across all 193 UN Member States, providing what is effectively a global diagnostic of where countries stand in adopting open science policies, building infrastructure, and cultivating practice. Monitoring tools of this kind serve two purposes. They give policymakers an evidence base for targeting investment and capacity-building where readiness is lowest, and they create a baseline against which progress during the Science Decade can be measured. Combined with the Open4Science platform and the international specification, the index completes a triad of infrastructure, standards, and measurement that gives OS10 a distinctive profile among open science initiatives.

The significance of the NSL-PLOS memorandum lies less in any single deliverable than in what it represents: a convergence between China’s rapidly growing open science infrastructure efforts and the international publishing community’s reform agenda, mediated through a UNESCO-endorsed framework. The stated ambition of both parties is to promote the open sharing and innovative use of scientific knowledge and data, contributing to a more open, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable global open science ecosystem. Whether that ambition translates into durable, interoperable systems will depend on execution over the coming years, but the ingredients are now in place: a platform with global reach, an emerging specification, a readiness index covering every UN member state, and a formal partnership linking infrastructure builders with one of open access publishing’s most experienced innovators. For researchers, librarians, and policymakers watching the open science transition, the OS10 programme is now one of the initiatives to watch.

Subject of Research: International cooperation on open science infrastructure through the OS10 Programme

Article Title: National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences and PLOS sign MOU on jointly advancing the OS10 Programme

Article References: National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences and PLOS sign MOU on jointly advancing the OS10 Programme. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: open science, PLOS, Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Science Library, OS10, UNESCO, Open4Science, open access, research data sharing, open science infrastructure, capacity building, International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development

The evaluation by SCOAP3, a coalition comprising over 3,000 libraries and research institutions dedicated to supporting open access in particle physics, was conducted between October 1 and December 31, 2024. SCOAP3’s novel annual assessment aims to incentivize publishers to enhance their open science policies by tying compensation to demonstrable improvements in practices such as data sharing, software availability, and increasing the transparency of the publication process. APS’s exemplary performance reflects its strategic emphasis on integrating these principles across its publishing platforms.

Central to APS’s exemplary rating were its advanced policies surrounding data and software availability. By mandating that research data and the computational tools underpinning published articles be openly accessible, APS ensures that studies can be independently verified and built upon, a cornerstone of rigorous scientific progress. This comprehensive approach serves not only the particle physics community but sets a potential benchmark model for other scientific disciplines to emulate.

Metadata practices also played a pivotal role in the APS’s distinction. The Society’s detailed and structured metadata commitment, implemented through recognized standards such as Crossref, facilitates unprecedented discoverability and interoperability of research outputs. By leveraging persistent identifiers like the Research Organization Registry (ROR) and Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), APS ensures that authors, institutions, and research outputs are unambiguously linked and easily traceable across digital platforms.

Furthermore, the accessibility of APS web content was evaluated with particular scrutiny. Adopting inclusive design strategies, the Society’s online portals and journals provide seamless access to a broad audience, including individuals using assistive technologies. This dedication to universal access underscores APS’s mission to eliminate barriers to scientific knowledge dissemination, creating equitable opportunities for engagement across diverse research communities.

APS’s leadership in open science emerges from a legacy rooted in innovation. Since 1991, when it championed the launch of arXiv and the concept of preprints, the Society has consistently advanced initiatives that democratize scientific information. Today, its open science mission permeates not only the three SCOAP3-participating journals—Physical Review Letters, Physical Review C, and Physical Review D—but extends comprehensively to all APS publications, reflecting institutional dedication at every level.

Looking forward, APS is actively exploring novel avenues to further enhance transparency within the peer review process. The Society is currently piloting a peer review assistant powered by artificial intelligence, alongside research integrity checks, in partnership with Purpose-Led Publishing. These technologies aim to augment the rigor and fairness of peer review, reduce biases, and maintain high ethical standards, all while preserving the confidentiality and quality necessary for scientific discourse.

This pioneering spirit aimed at continuous improvement reflects the belief articulated by APS leadership that such efforts are not merely procedural but fundamentally "the right thing to do for science." By enhancing accessibility, discoverability, openness, and transparency, APS ensures its journals are primed to amplify their impact and encourage robust scientific collaboration globally.

The importance of such initiatives is further underscored by Jeff Lewandowski, director of publishing at APS, who emphasized that supporting open science maximizes the return on investment in scientific research. This creates a virtuous cycle where funding bodies, researchers, and the broader public all benefit from more accessible and credible scientific knowledge. Collaboration with entities such as CERN and other society publishers amplifies these collective efforts, building a stronger, more connected research ecosystem.

The unique framework of SCOAP3 enables these advancements by rewarding publishers who commit to open science. With the evolving landscape of academia demanding increasingly transparent and inclusive practices, this kind of assessment sets a new paradigm, encouraging other publishers to follow suit or innovate further to meet rising expectations.

Moreover, the APS commitment extends beyond the mechanics of open access. The Society invests continuously in developing infrastructure and policies that uphold the reproducibility of research findings, one of the pivotal challenges in contemporary science. By ensuring that published articles come with accessible, verifiable data and well-documented software, APS supports scientists in reconstructing, validating, and building on prior work effectively.

In conclusion, the American Physical Society’s leading score in the SCOAP3 evaluation is more than just a accolade; it signifies a transformative advancement in how scientific knowledge is published and shared. It embodies a vision where openness, ethical integrity, and technological innovation converge to propel science forward. As the APS continues to pioneer reforms and technology integrations, it serves as an exemplar for the global academic publishing industry, reinforcing the notion that science thrives best in the open.

Subject of Research: Open Science Practices in Scholarly Publishing, High-Energy Physics Publishing

Article Title: American Physical Society Leads Open Science Publishers in SCOAP3 Evaluation

News Publication Date: 2024

Web References:

• https://www.aps.org/
• https://scoap3.org/
• https://scoap3.org/journals-2025-2027/open-science-elements/
• https://journals.aps.org/prl/
• https://journals.aps.org/prc/
• https://journals.aps.org/prd/
• https://www.purposeledpublishing.org/

Keywords: Open Access, Digital Publishing, Scientific Organizations, Data Availability, Scientific Journals, Academic Policy, Scientific Integrity, Scientific Collaboration, Particle Accelerators, Academic Journals, Publishing Industry, Peer Review, Science Policy, Physics, Particle Physics