Introduction
In an ever-changing scholarly world, what organizations are committed to driving renewed shifts in the principles, commitments, and attitudes towards Open Science and, thus, towards the accessibility of research knowledge and data? Angela Holzer’s guest lecture on May 5th, 2025 in regards to the framework of open science suggests that her organization is up to the task of aiding this change: Holzer, a program director for the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, spoke on behalf of the federally-funded German Research Foundation dedicated to furthering the accessibility of scientific research data and findings with advocacy, funding, and various programs. The philosophy and regulation behind the DFG’s commitment to Open Science, as well as what measures the DFG has taken to ensure that the changes to the field are truly feasible, is outlined here in a brief summary.
Not only is the DFG the largest funder for public research in Germany, but funding for research in fields such as the Humanities and Social Sciences respectively reached more than 600 Million Euros in 2023, having steadily increased each year since 2020 (Holzer 2025).
A Commitment to Open Science
The DFG is laying the groundwork for their succinct methodology towards the infrastructure of processes and inherent resources through a number of core principles, ones that Angela Holzer exposited in-depth during her presentation: Open Science – or, as described by the DFG themselves their commitment to the headlining practices and tenets of accessibility – is an attitude (DFG 2022). The predilection towards fair and accessible research work is what drives this movement as a propulsive vessel to bring real change to the field, where Holzer explains that funding drives three particular philosophies: To the effort of both accessibility and reproducibility, funding is funneled into categories such as research data, open sourcing, and open access. Such is the intent that – given 2021 UN / UNESCO recommendations as described by Holzer – findings ought to be available to all and quite especially to scholars and people of societies within which it may be far more difficult to access data as Western scholars generally are able. Thus, it is the very infrastructure and codification that serves this purpose, propagating the question of how structure and the adherent processes can best be tailored to support Open Science, itself (DFG 2022).
What is most important in furthering the systemic efforts of Open Science consists of a need to place them in context. Ideally, this constitutes a codex, of sorts, where one considers the ownership of the infrastructure that hosts resources and who decides how to manage them, how they are being used, and how they may be verifiable in as transparent a manner as possible (DFG 2022). To Holzer, all of the processes laid out by Open Science are ‘logical consequences of what science should do in a digital age,’ or the result of a reliable, transparent system that reinforces positive research culture.
Underlying principles define the role of research assessment – or the general evaluation of a research project’s results in regards to impact (Holzer 2025) – where the DFG has committed to the advancement of Open Science practices through:
The DFG’s participation in the CoARA Core Commitments, as showcased below as a graphical image, which are paramount to their methodology in tackling issues and driving change and particularly so in regards to research assessment. The CoARA is an international initiative of more than 700 different institutions, which suggest that assessment should change to suit a more qualitative methodology.
The idea that Metric-based assessment is less prominent, instead favoring evaluation to become less reliant on the amount of publications or in publication journals with higher impact factors – nor should it rely upon the number of citations a paper receives to denote importance or impact.
The supporting of foundational principles as contributions to good research, which should provide opportunities in diverse and inclusive ways, showcase discretion as to which aspects of the research process should be made available, and develop infrastructures primarily and most importantly according to the needs of research communities, themselves.
In the end, Holzer and the DFG alleviated concerns that the intricacies of IP - Intellectual Property - should be respected and accounted for. The organization is having conversations as to how to tackle this complex issue, where they can build the framework around legal rights and copyrighting.
Discussion
The formal lecture was followed by a discussion, in which members of the audience raised concerns, including but not limited to questions as to the validity of a standardized framework in the complex environment of Academia, no less, but as to how the DFG may-well push for Academia to change – all with the incorporation of Open Science practices in mind. The DFG is up to the challenge, and Holzer, herself, feels that if the framework is universal enough - i.e. less specific, in her words – then it will translate to a more successful execution.
“Open science is a way of applying the fundamental aspirations of research and scholarship, in particular the need for the free circulation of knowledge, in the digital age. When shaping open science, the underlying conditions that enable the functioning of research and scholarship must be taken into account. At the same time, framework conditions have to be adapted and shaped for the future so that open science can become a reality in a way that is beneficial for research and scholarship.” (DFG 2022)
Furthermore, Holzer allayed concerns about data and research privacy, where it was said that, in many stages of the processes such as research proposals, for example, IP is kept confidential. Much of this information is not public, and the same goes for reviews – if academic reviews to proposals are public, the author of the proposal would know exactly who had reviewed it.
Conclusion
The DFG’s full guidelines and philosophy are expounded considerably in the supplemental material to Angela Holzer’s presentation, the Positioning of the German Research Foundation (2022). However, Holzer’s lecture allowed attendees of the talk to gain direct and personable insight, especially with the forum-esque discussion that followed the presentation. The DFG has real plans for the proliferation of Open Science principles in every field of Academia through their framework towards research processes, and it is up to all of us, as scholars, to contribute to bringing these principles to reality.
