A Race Against Time: Unlocking Science to Save Our Planet
“Without credibility, Science is just another climate crisis voice.” SH
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A Race Against Time: Unlocking Science to Save Our Planet
Money alone is not enough - we need radical scientific innovation in record time to prevent the world from reaching a tipping point that risks all life on earth.
The impact of scientific achievements on humanity's progress has been profound. Electricity, transport, and energy technologies have transformed our lives. Agricultural research has allowed us to produce food for eight billion people. And understanding hygiene and ways to prevent infection has allowed us to live longer. Water chlorination alone has saved 175 million lives1. Antibiotics have saved 200 million lives2 and vaccines have safeguarded more than one billion lives3.
While incredible, the sobering reality is that out of the four million scientific papers published each year, some 61% remain locked away behind subscription paywalls, including 95% of research related to climate change4. Doctors, policy makers, and companies, including many researchers, have limited access to the latest research, restricting the speed at which they can collaborate and innovate. Imagine what could be achieved if we had unrestricted access to the latest science?
Unlocking science means moving from pay-to-read to pay-to-process so that scientific research, data, and methods are openly accessible to everyone. We must move from a traditional system of subscription publishers into an era where pure open access publishers, such as Frontiers, are harnessing the power of technology to provide expert peer review services and publish high quality research articles that are openly accessible to everyone. If we want to save our planet, open science is pivotal.
The COVID-19 pandemic unequivocally demonstrated the power of making science open. As the first COVID-19 cases were reported, scientists sequenced the coronavirus genetic code and uploaded it to an open databank. When the world went into lockdown, world leaders turned to scientists for solutions, and it was obvious that fast solutions relied on the open sharing of science. In the US, the White House, along with a coalition of research organisations, launched the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19)5, mandating that all coronavirus-related research articles be made openly available. There were about 30,000 coronavirus-related research articles at the time, most locked away behind paywalls. By the end of the pandemic, nearly 500,000 research articles had been produced and shared openly.
The open sharing of this research, along with the extraordinary rallying of resources, delivered COVID–19 vaccines and treatments at a pace never experienced before in human history and saved more than 20 million lives in the first year alone.
Why has our science not been opened to solve our biggest annual killers – respiratory diseases, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases? Are these lives not also worth saving? What about the urgent need for a transition to net-zero? Even though planetary health poses the biggest challenge in human history, most of the science around climate is locked away. Within just 7 years we need to reduce carbon emissions by 45%6 and transition to a net-zero economy by 2050. This means reinventing, restructuring, and rebuilding our cities, mines, food supply chains, industries, and transport systems7.
The number of new scientific solutions required can seem daunting but that is only because science is inaccessible. Scientists are blocked from collaborating on the solutions we need for healthy lives on a healthy planet. Scientists have the solutions, but they will not be delivered on time with the scientific research still locked away. Open science is the simplest and most cost-effective accelerator for scientific solutions and to save lives.
Science diplomacy: unlocking science needs a global mandate
The transition to net-zero clean economies relies heavily on all science being made open, but to achieve this, we need resolute political leadership.
Governments and universities bear an enormous responsibility to enable innovators to deliver market-ready solutions, by mandating the immediate and unrestricted dissemination of taxpayer-funded research findings. At no additional cost, these mandates will massively accelerate science-based solutions. Leading the way is the European Commission with their flagship initiative Plan S8, which mandates that research funded by public grants is openly accessible to all. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)9 maintains similar policies for the research outputs and, in 2022, the US White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)10 also issued guidelines mandating the immediate and unrestricted dissemination of taxpayer-funded research findings.
“We have no time to waste. The power of unrestricted science, backed by political leadership, will be the driving force in shaping our path toward a cleaner, healthier, and more prosperous world. It is the simplest solution to save lives, and it is crucial that we seize it. Make science open.” Dr Kamila Markram, CEO of Frontiers.
Open access to science is not a privilege but a universal right, enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights11, and we need resolute political leadership to facilitate change and drive collaboration. Opening COVID-related science in the race to find a vaccine proved what can be achieved and at a phenomenal pace. Only by replicating that approach can we accelerate the solutions we need to save our planet.