The 2025 figures from the Open Science Barometer have just been released by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. This national tool measures, for each institution, the proportion of scientific publications available for free online.
Open access means that scientific articles are available without a subscription or financial barrier. This allows researchers, professionals, students, and the general public to freely access research results.
Today, 91 of our 108 publications are open access, representing a rate of 84%. This result places us well above the national average of 62% and confirms our commitment to the sharing and dissemination of knowledge.
3 Questions for Olivier Pourret, Assistant Professor of Geochemistry and Open Science Coordinator at UniLaSalle
What is the Open Science Barometer, and why is it an important indicator for an engineering school like ours?
"The French Open Science Barometer (BSO) is a measurement tool developed by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Space. Its goal is to track the evolution of open science in France using reliable, open, and controlled data.
In terms of publications, the Open Science Barometer measures the ratio of French publications freely available online out of the total number of publications, by year, discipline, or publisher. The data is cross-referenced from sources such as Unpaywall, HAL, PubMed, and DOAJ.
For an engineering school like UniLaSalle, this is a strategic indicator in several respects. First, it allows the school to position itself relative to the national average and to highlight the research efforts undertaken. Second, it fits within a regulatory framework that applies to all institutions conducting public research. Finally, for a school with a professional focus and rooted in fields such as agronomy, the environment, and others, open access facilitates the dissemination of results to socio-economic stakeholders, businesses, local governments, and associations, extending beyond academic communities alone."
With a rate of 84% compared to 62% nationally, UniLaSalle stands out clearly. How can this gap be explained, and what factors were decisive?
"This significant gap—more than 20 percentage points above the national average—is no coincidence. Several structural and cultural factors can explain it.
The first factor is the institution’s explicit commitment to Open Science. UniLaSalle has developed an internal policy, in place since 2020, encouraging the systematic deposit of publications in open repositories, starting with HAL, which is one of the main channels for the green route in France according to the Open Science Barometer. This commitment has resulted in raising awareness among faculty members and providing support for the submission process.
The second factor relates to the size and cohesion of the research community. In a small-scale institution like UniLaSalle, it is easier to foster a shared culture, identify relevant publications, and provide individualized follow-up.
A third factor is the nature of the publications produced. A significant portion of UniLaSalle’s work appears in journals or disciplines where open access is already well-established (environmental sciences, agronomy, geosciences), particularly through diamond open-access journals or short embargo policies.
Finally, the presence of researchers actively engaged in debates on open access, including at the international level, serves as a significant internal catalyst by keeping the issue on the agenda and motivating colleagues."
What obstacles remain, and what are the goals for the coming years?
"Despite these encouraging results, real obstacles remain. These include: resistance from certain publishers who maintain long embargo periods or restrictive policies on self-archiving; a lack of awareness or time on the part of some researchers to submit their work; the fragmentation of practices across disciplines; and the difficulty in tracking publications resulting from international collaborations where co-authors are not subject to the same obligations.
For the coming years, the national goal is ambitious: to achieve 100% open access for journal articles by 2030, in line with the national Open Science strategy. For UniLaSalle, this means building on existing achievements in publishing, but also making progress on the sharing of research data and code, by developing data management practices from the very start of projects (data management plans), and by leveraging available national infrastructures (disciplinary repositories, HAL, etc.)."
