New York, 23 June 2026 — UNESCO has publicly launched the UNESCO Open Science Platform, a free and open-source digital infrastructure designed to promote open access to the organisation's scientific knowledge and to track global progress on open science implementation across its Member States.
The platform was unveiled during the UN Open Source Week 2026, held from 22 to 26 June in New York. Developed in partnership with the United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC), it is built on open technologies, including a customised implementation of CERN's InvenioRDM — an open-source framework for building large-scale digital academic repositories. The platform's release as free and open-source software means other institutions can adopt and adapt the codebase for their own repository needs.
Bringing UNESCO Research Into One Search Interface
The platform aggregates a growing collection of research outputs from UNESCO science programmes, awards, and fellowship initiatives. Its current collection focuses primarily on publications — journal articles, books, and reports — with plans to integrate research data over time. Users can access detailed metadata, identify the open access status of resources, and explore impact indicators including scholarly and patent citations through a single search interface.
Interactive Dashboards Tracking Global Open Science Progress
The platform's dashboards visualise progress across a range of open science dimensions in UNESCO Member States, including policies, infrastructure, capacity building, and incentives. The data underlying these dashboards was collected through UNESCO's first consultation on the implementation of the Recommendation on Open Science, which drew reports from 77 countries in 2025.
The dashboards feature:
- Cross-country visualisations enabling comparative analysis
- Individual country profiles
- A semantic cloud of key challenges in implementing open science
One finding already surfaced by the platform: approximately 75% of responding Member States report having open science infrastructure at the national or institutional level. However, the dashboards also reveal significant gaps in policy frameworks and incentive structures, particularly in developing regions.
Translating Research for Policy and Society
Beyond serving as a repository, the platform features curated highlights and illustrated plain-language summaries that translate complex research findings into clear, actionable insights. Current topics include climate change, water resource management, and the gender gap in science. These summaries are designed for decision-makers and non-specialist audiences, bridging the gap between research, policy, and society. UNESCO has indicated these features will be updated regularly to reflect the latest evidence.
Responding to Member State Demand
Shaofeng Hu, Director of the Division of Ethics, Research and Technology in UNESCO's Sciences Sector, described the platform as a direct response to Member States' need for practical tools to implement the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. The Recommendation, adopted by 193 Member States, defines open science broadly — encompassing open access to publications, open data, open-source software, and open hardware — while emphasising that access should be "as open as possible," with necessary restrictions for privacy, intellectual property, and security.
Context: A Busy Year for Open Science at UNESCO
The platform launch is the latest in a series of 2026 milestones for UNESCO's open science work:
| Milestone | Date | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Global consultation on equitable scholarly communication | March 2026 | Draft policy brief on fairness in scholarly publishing |
| Open Science Platform launch | June 2026 | First public open-source repository and dashboards |
| Open Science Outlook 2 | July 2026 | Global assessment of implementation progress |
The Open Science Outlook 2, launched in July 2026 during the Global Conference of the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development (2024–2033), builds on the first monitoring cycle data now visualised in the platform's dashboards.
Implications for the Global Research Community
The platform's open-source nature means it is not locked to UNESCO's ecosystem. Research institutions, national funding agencies, and other UN bodies can deploy their own instances using the same codebase, potentially creating a network of interoperable repositories sharing common standards. The InvenioRDM framework already supports this vision through its adoption by CERN, Zenodo, and several university repositories worldwide.
For researchers in developing countries, the platform's dashboards provide a diagnostic tool: they can see how their nation compares on open science infrastructure, policies, and incentives, and identify gaps that national strategies need to address. The finding that 73% of countries still invest less than 1% of GDP in R&D — documented separately in the UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2026 data release — underscores the resource constraints that make shared, low-cost infrastructure platforms particularly valuable.
Sources
- UNESCO, "Launch of UNESCO Open Science Platform," 23 June 2026,
- UNESCO, "UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science," 2021,
- InvenioRDM,
- UN Open Source Week 2026,
- UNESCO, "First Global Open Science Monitoring Cycle," 2025,
FIRAT Editorial Board
Institutional Research Desk · Foresight Institute of Research and Translation
The collective editorial and research translation board of FIRAT, synthesising peer-reviewed evidence, policy briefs, and division milestones across our seven foundational research pillars.
