In a November 2019 interview about open access, Alain Schuhl, the CNRS’s Deputy CEO for Science, clearly restated the CNRS’s ambition to open up scientific publications: “Our aim is to reach the target figure of 100% quickly. We’re going to invest the right resources to achieve this and equip our researchers with the best tools.”

The CNRS has been encouraging CNRS scientists to deposit their accepted author manuscripts (AAM) on the HAL open archive since 2019. Deposits on HAL will count positively in researchers’ annual activity reports (CRAC for STM and RIBAC for the HSS).

In an interview on the rights retention strategy published in December 2022, Alain Schuhl points out that “scientists own their work which means there is no reason for them to make an exclusive free copyright transfer to a publisher.“

Under the rights retention strategy, immediate open access to the accepted author manuscript (AAM) is guaranteed when an article is submitted to a publisher.

In reality, this is a “strategy to open uprights” because researchers who do so no longer have to authorise others to translate or disseminate their publications and so on.

Alain Schuhl recommends that CNRS scientists publish their articles in open access at no extra cost to authors or readers in compliance with the CNRS’s Roadmap for Open Science.

In an interview on publication fees published in April 2022, Alain Schuhl recommends that CNRS researchers should deposit their manuscripts in open archives and opt for the ‘diamond’ publication model.

In June 2023, Alain Schuhl spoke out about the increase in publication fees that is putting a strain on research budgets. He encourages scientists to remain “extremely vigilant” about certain predatory publishing practices.

A press release explains that the CNRS was one of the first signatories of the ‘diamond’ open access action plan published by the National Research Agency (ANR), Science Europe, the Operas research infrastructure and the ‘Coalition S’.

This action plan promotes the ‘diamond’ publication model based on academic subsidies. It enables researchers to publish their work in open access without paying publication fees and also to read other articles free of charge.

In an interview on research data published in November 2020, Alain Schuhl announced the implementation of the CNRS’s ‘Research Data’ plan encouraging scientists to make their data accessible and reusable.

Making data attached to a scientific publication available is essential for understanding, reproducing and approving a scientific result. For this it is important to make data ‘FAIR’ – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable – right from the design stage of research projects and onwards.

On November 30^th 2022, the CNRS’s 4^th Open Science Days were focused on research data management and sharing issues.

In an interview on research data, Sylvie Rousset, the director of the DDOR, discusses existing tools and services and also issues linked with research data.

This event is part of a series of CNRS internal open science days. It is for scientists from the CNRS’s ten Institutes and members of the scientific councils of all French research institutions.