Category Archives: Surveys

EconStor Survey 2022: Repository Registers Satisfied Users, but More Marketing Efforts Needed

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Guest article by Ralf Toepfer, Lisa Schäfer and Olaf Siegert

Back in 2009, the ZBW launched its disciplinary Open Access repository EconStor. Now in 2022, it provides more than 240,000 academic papers from the economics and business studies disciplines, coming from over 600 institutions and about 1000 single authors worldwide. All papers are available in Open Access. After thirteen years of developing and connecting EconStor we thought, it was high time to hear from our research community, what they think about the repository and its services.

In this short report, we would like to present the results of a user survey we conducted this year. First, we will give some background information about the survey and how it was conducted. Then we describe who the actual respondents were. Last but not least, we present some results on specific aspects of the survey.

Background information

The idea to conduct a survey came up in a brainstorm meeting of the EconStor team in 2020. Our aim was to address the following topics:

  • Satisfaction of the research community with EconStor,
  • Environment analysis (which other tools are used in economic research?),
  • Special look at our authors (who is uploading papers on EconStor?),
  • Suggestions for further development.

Since we are no survey experts, we knew, we would have to rely on some external assistance. This was provided from two sides: First, our ZBW marketing team, who had conducted surveys on other issues before. And second, from a course of students in library and information science at the HAW -Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (German). Their professor, Petra Düren, contacted us in spring 2021 to ask for practical examples regarding user surveys. We decided to organise an international EconStor user survey together at the start of 2022. We developed the questionnaire and used Limesurvey as our tool for the survey. After some pretesting, we were ready to start.

The survey was conducted between the 10th and the 24th of January 2022. We promoted it via the EconStor website and through mailings among researchers in Germany and abroad. Overall, we received 756 responses, of which 441 were fully completed questionnaires.

Profile of respondents

Most of the respondents came from Europe (87%): Half of them (45%) was based in Germany, other major European countries were Italy (16%), Spain (5%) and France (4%). From the rest of the world about 3% overall came from the United States and 3% from Australia.

Regarding their affiliations, most respondents were coming from universities (78%), another 10% were from universities of applied sciences and 6% from non-university research organisations. The rest mainly came from central banks or the private sector.

With regard to the age of the participants, we received fairly even answers from different age groups according to the academic career span: i.e. 9% were younger than 30 years, 45% were between 30 and 49 years and 56% were 50 years or older. Looking at their academic status, 58% were professors, 20% were researchers or postdocs and 18% were PhD Students (see illustration 1).

Illustration 1: EconStor User Survey 2022: Participants by academic status

Regarding the scientific disciplines, most of the respondents came from the field of economics (65%) or business studies (25%), the remaining 10 % were allocated to neighbouring disciplines such as sociology, political studies, statistics or geography.

Results of the EconStor survey

The survey addressed various aspects of the use of EconStor such as awareness and familiarity of the services, usage of searching and browsing options, evaluation of the services and suggestions for improvement. In the following, we briefly present some key results.

Usage & environment analysis

The majority of respondents have known EconStor for more than three years, but there are differences by discipline, as researchers in economics are aware of EconStor longer than their colleagues in business studies (see Illustration 2).

Illustration 2: EconStor User Survey 2022: Awareness of EconStor

In terms of usage, almost half of the respondents use EconStor at least once a month and about 14% even weekly, indicating that the majority of respondents are quite familiar with the platform.

Illustration 3: EconStor User Survey 2022: Usage of EconStor

About one third of the respondents from the field of economics first discovered EconStor via RePEc, while most researchers from business studies became aware of EconStor via Google Scholar. This is in line with the answers given concerning the use of other platforms the researchers use to access economic papers, where besides ResearchGate, Google Scholar, RePEc and SSRN are mentioned.

Illustration 4: EconStor User Survey 2022: Usage of other platforms than EconStor to access economic papers

Coincidently ResearchGate and to a lesser extent RePEc and SSRN are the most used platforms to distribute research papers in economics and business studies. Researchers also consider their own research institution important for disseminating their papers. This suggests that institutional repositories are still relevant even if large disciplinary and interdisciplinary platforms exist.

Illustration 5: EconStor User Survey 2022: Platforms to distribute research papers

Searching & browsing

EconStor provides several options to navigate through the website. Users can find papers by searching specifically for individual titles or by using the browsing function to view documents sorted by institution, type of document, author, etc. Considering the answers given, searching and browsing options are not very important. Only about 50% of respondents even use the options provided by EconStor. One of the respondents wrote, “I search for papers mostly via Google or Google Scholar, where I may find EconStor papers. It did not occur to me to search on EconStor itself, or to explore its functionality.” This answer seems to describe the typical use case of EconStor accurately. Our monthly usage statistics tell the same story: Researchers use EconStor primarily as a source to get the full text after searching databases or using search engines.

Illustration 6: EconStor User Survey 2022: Usage of browsing and searching functions

Self-upload & quality management

More than 600 institutions use EconStor to disseminate their publications. Authors can also upload their papers themselves, although this feature is reserved for Ph.D. researchers in economics and business studies at academic institutions. After registering, authors can upload working papers as well as journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, etc. The majority of about 55% of the respondents did not know about this option. However, of the authors who actively use the self-upload feature, more than 95% are satisfied or even very satisfied with the self-upload process.

Illustration 7: EconStor User Survey 2022: Satisfaction with the self-upload process

Once a paper is uploaded, the EconStor team checks several points for quality assurance: namely plagiarism check, personal requirements for registration, document type, journal listing in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and formal checks of the paper. About two thirds of the authors appreciate this quality assurance measures. The plagiarism check and formal check are most important to them.

Illustration 8: EconStor User Survey 2022: Importance of quality assurance checks

Evaluation of other EconStor services

EconStor provides some more services than the self-upload feature or the searching and browsing options. To the EconStor users the most important other services are the distribution service and the provision of download statistics. The distribution service includes distribution to search engines like Google, Google Scholar or BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) and to academic databases like WorldCat, OpenAire and EconBiz . More than 90 % of the respondents agree that these two services are important for their work. The possibility to export metadata and to link papers with their underlying research data are relevant too, but to a lesser extent.

Illustration 9: EconStor User Survey 2022: Importance of different services in EconStor

Overall evaluation of EconStor

More than 95% of the respondents are satisfied or very satisfied with EconStor and its services overall. This applies to the two research areas of economics and business studies.

Illustration 10: EconStor User Survey 2022: Evaluation of EconStor and its services overall

About 67% of the respondents feel sufficiently informed about the services on the EconStor website. While this is by no means a bad result, there is room for improvement. Some respondents for example suggest providing a newsletter informing about new content indexed in EconStor.

Suggestions for improving EconStor

54 respondents were kind enough to share their views on possible improvements to EconStor. The suggestions ranged from the desire for higher visibility or awareness of EconStor and the desire for more information about the product to suggestions for improving individual functions.

Illustration 11: EconStor User Survey 2022: Suggestions for improving EconStor

Conclusions on the 2022 EconStor survey

Overall, the researchers evaluated EconStor very positively. In particular, users who have known the service for several years and those who actively use the self-upload feature are very satisfied with it. Its users perceive EconStor primarily as a full-text source that can discovered via search engines, while its own search and browsing functions are less well known. The environment analysis shows differences between researchers from economics on the one side and business studies on the other, e.g. regarding the relevance of RePEc or ResearchGate. The potential for greater use could be tapped through stronger marketing (including promotion of the self-upload service) and through supplementary services.

The EconStor team very much appreciates the answers and opinions provided. This will help us to make EconStor even better. As a first response, we have created two promotional videos, one regarding EconStor in general, and the other one regarding the self-uploading process in particular. Other improvements will follow soon.

This could also interest you:

About the authors:

Ralf Toepfer works in the Publication Services Department of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, where he is responsible for discipline-specific services for the management of economic research data, among other things. You can also find him on Mastodon.
Portrait: ZBW©, photographer: Sven Wied

Lisa Schäfer has been supporting various Open Access transformation projects at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics since 2020.
Portrait: Lisa Schäfer©

Olaf Siegert is head of the Publication Services department and Open Access Representative of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. He is involved with open access as part of his work at the ZBW and is also active for the Leibniz Association, where he represents the Leibniz Open Access working group in external committees. He is involved in the Alliance of Science Organisations in the working group Scientific Publication System and at Science Europe for the Leibniz Association.
Portrait: ZBW©

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Digital Long-term Archiving: Discovering Networks With the nestor Community Survey

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Guest article by Svenia Pohlkamp, Stefan Strathmann and Monika Zarnitz

The idea of the nestor community survey

Digital preservation is a task that is complicated and resource-intensive. Cooperation, communication and mutual support is necessary to cope with the different challenges of this matter. nestor is active in all these areas.

That`s why the idea emerged to start a survey among the national and international communities that cope with digital preservation. nestor installed a small working group that developed the questionnaire and analysed the result of the community survey. The aim of this survey is to create transparency about the international landscape of communities in this field and to collect information for all those who wish to collaborate.

The questionnaire for the survey, which was conducted online, consisted of 40 questions. We gathered 54 valid answers as basis for our analysis.

The nestor community survey

The survey distributed through multiple channels, such as mailing lists, direct contact to colleagues and so on from autumn 2019 until May 2020. The results of the survey were evaluated, edited and published in 2022 in the series of nestor materials.

Besides this publication, another result of the survey was the development of so-called community profiles, which you can find on nestor’s website. These profiles are self-descriptions of the involved communities and may serve as a sort of registry of national and international communities. They provide the first ever overview of the various facets, resources and focal areas of long-term archiving networks worldwide. The aim is to improve transparency and facilitate cooperation of the different communities worldwide.

Of the 54 participants who completed the questionnaire in full, 32 have so far allowed us to publish their community profile. We hope that more will give their consent. The communities had the opportunity to update and/or correct their data while reviewing their profiles.

What is a community?

One basic decision during the project was how to define and circumscribe the term “community” in the context of the survey, since there are manifold possibilities to define a community and it should be fitting to our object of investigation. Following intensive discussion, the working group agreed on the following definition:

  • An open community of persons and/or institutions that engages with the subject of long-term archiving. Digital long-term archiving can be one of several topics, which the community deals with.
  • A community whose members are committed to digital long-term archiving in a manner that goes beyond pure self-interest. Its central or sole purpose is not to supply a product or provide a commercial service.
  • A platform for discussing the topic of digital long-term archiving and its advancement, including the development of tools and/or the provision of services.
  • It can be local, regional or international.
  • It does not matter how big the community is. It can be large or small.
  • Whether the community is product-related or not is also irrelevant.
  • In the following paragraphs, we present some selected results of the survey.

Digital preservation communities: Where are they situated?

In question 6 we asked in which country or part of the world the community is located. Several communities mentioned more than one country in the text entry field. We chose either the country where they are based or the first country they mentioned.

Digital preservation communities: Where are they situated?

Interpretation: Almost all communities represented in this survey are situated in industrial countries. Either we couldn’t reach out to the communities in other countries or there are very few digital preservation communities in the developing and less-developed countries. This may be due to the lack of resources, and shows that in the most countries there is either few digital preservation activity or the actors in this field do not have the resources to join a community and benefit from the exchange with colleagues in other countries. The latter aspect may be not so important because communities increasingly communicate digitally and there is abundant literature and software freely accessible in the web.

Digital preservation communities: Are they silos or do they cooperate with each other?

In question 25, we asked how many cooperations with other communities the participating communities currently have. Four check boxes were provided. Only one answer could be given.

Percentage of cooperations

Interpretation: Our data shows clearly, that communities are no silos and that they interact with other communities intensively. Only 17 % of the communities do not have a cooperation with another community, while 19 % of them cooperate with more than ten other communities. Institutions and persons who engage in digital preservation are often members of several communities, so there is a broad exchange of ideas, tools, publications and other results of community work. Digital preservation is a task too complicated to tackle on one’s own and this not only on the individual level but at the level of communities as well. This may be the reason for the intensive exchange between the communities.

Digital preservation communities: What kind of organisation are they and what kind of finance do they use?

In question 11, we enquired how the communities are organised. The majority of 93 % stated to be non-profit organisations. In question 14, we asked how the communities finance themselves and their work. Six check boxes were provided. Multiple answers were possible. The sixth check box was “Other” with a text entry field.

The entries for “Other” have been re-categorised and are shown in the table below alongside the five given response options. The entries re-categorised and reassigned in “Other” are displayed in italics.

Digital preservation communities: What kind of organisation are they and what kind of finance do they use?

Interpretation: This table shows that the main sources of finance are membership fees, revenues from services, sponsoring, third party fund / grants and in kind contributions. None of the other sources has a comparable importance for financing. This, together with the fact that communities are mainly non-profit organisations (see above), shows that digital preservation has no commercial aims and that the self-conception of these organisations is comparable to the self-conception of libraries, archives and museums as heritage organisations. Indeed, the persons active in the communities originate from organisations such as these and carry the same mentality into the communities.

Digital preservation communities: What makes a community successful?

In question 40 we asked about the most important success factors of the community. Participants often entered several options into the text fields. This means, there were many different answers to this question. For this reason, we assigned the answers given in the text entry fields to different categories (where possible) and displayed them in a word cloud. It contains all the categorised answers as well as those for which no category was found.

This word cloud contains all the categorised answers as well as those for which no category was found.

Interpretation: This word cloud shows the most important aspects for the success of a digital preservation community. Three aspects are particularly significant:

  1. Critical success factors are the engagement, the collaboration and the sharing of knowledge and resources.
  2. Communities support the creation of knowledge and technologies for digital preservation.
  3. The broadness of a community is important since there are so many details in digital preservation that the manifoldness of competencies and perspectives is necessary..

Conclusion on digital preservation communities

The nestor community survey offers a rich source of data that explains the behaviour of digital preservation communities. The cases we picked up in this blog post show that the communities cluster in industrial countries and that they are in close contact and interaction with each other on several levels (the communities themselves, individual members, institutions, persons). The institutions that are parts of the communities are mainly non-profit organisations with the typical sources of finance and the typical mentality of heritage organisations.

Repetition in 2023

We would like to repeat the survey in 2023 and hope to improve it with our experiences from the first run. We aim at reducing the time between the beginning of the next survey and the date of publication of the results and we will reformulate some questions so that they are clearer and the evaluation is easier. We hope that with the publication of the first survey there may be more awareness for the second round and that then more communities participate.

We invite all communities that are active in the field of digital preservation to suggest improvements of the survey and to take part in its upcoming repetition. If you are interested in participating, please contact us:

This might also interest you:

About the authors:

Svenia Pohlkampworks at the German National Library (DNB) and manages the nestor office there. She is responsible for the coordination between nestor’s partners and organisational matters of the network. She also takes part in two of nestor’s working groups, Community Survey and Certification.

Stefan Strathmann works at the Göttingen State and University Library (SUB) in the Digital Library Department. He is responsible for SUB’s activities in the area of digital preservation. In particular, he represents the SUB at nestor, the German national network of excellence in digital preservation.

Dr Monika Zarnitz is an economist and Head of the Programme Area User Services & Collection Care at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. She is head of the nestor working group „Community Survey“.

Portrait Monika Zarnitz: Fotograf: Sven Wied, ZBW©

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Open Access Survey in Greece: Status Quo, Surprising Findings and Starting Points

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An interview with Maria Frantzi, Athanasia Salamoura and Giannis Tsakonas

The representative nationwide survey on Open Access in Greece took place in March and April 2021. 500 authors from seven disciplines were surveyed. The subject areas were: Natural Sciences, Humanities, Computer Science and Engineering, Health Sciences, Economics and Management, Social Sciences and Environmental Sciences.

The researchers surveyed varied in age and career stage, with around 80% of respondents having a great deal of academic work experience (16 or more years). The survey asked respondents questions about their opinions and experiences with different aspects of Open Access and its implementation methods.

Staff from the Scholarly Communication Unit (EESC) of the Hellenic Academic Libraries Link (HEAL-Link) designed and analysed the survey. HEAL-Link is the national consortium of academic libraries in Greece.

In the interview the team of EESC, namely Maria Frantzi, Athanasia Salamoura and Giannis Tsakonas, answer our questions about the background, results and consequences of the survey.

What is the state of Open Access in Greece?

Maria: In Greece there is no national mandate for Open Access though there are two Laws (4310/2014 and 4485/2017), which refer to the conditions of Open Access for publicly funded research and resources in education, research, technology, and culture. There is no Greek Research Funding Organisation (RFO) signatory of PlanS and, except HEAL-Link, there are no other centralised funds for OPEN ACCESS publications, but only a handful of institutional ones. The strong base of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) and the Greek language, has led to the development of a few platforms for diamond Open Access journals.

Guided by a declaration on Open Access, which was supported by the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, in May 2018, HEAL-Link, which is the consortium of Greek academic libraries, has taken many initiatives to foster Open Access. This includes agreements with an Open Access element in most of the collaborating publishers, as well as community-led initiatives, such as Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP³) and the Open Library for the Humanities (OLH). In March 2019, the Council of Rectors, as suggested by HEAL-Link, highly recommended to Universities‘ Senates a mandate for faculty and researchers to self-archive their scientific publications, but it hasn’t yet been implemented by the majority of the universities. Currently, except for two or three universities, all the institutional repositories have a mandatory policy for the deposit of theses and dissertations and a recommendation for the researchers’ and faculty publications. As a result, only one third of the Greek output seems to be published in Open Access with HEAL-Link being the only coordinated action.

What were the most surprising findings of the survey for you?

Athanasia: While the evidence that Maria mentioned is not very positive, it is encouraging to know that most of the researchers are aware of at least one Open Access route and that only a very small percentage has a negative opinion of Open Access.

Also, it’s interesting that only few of them publish in Open Access mode because it’s obligatory by their funding programme. If they have the resources, then they strongly consider opting for Open Access. A negatively surprising finding is that almost one third of the respondents said that they don’t know the repository of their institution although the institutional repositories (IRs) have been implemented for more than ten years.

Finally, we were surprised to see in the interviews that followed the survey, that some researchers consider other aspects of openness, such as Open Educational Resources, Open Source, etc., in tandem to Open Access publications.

How strong is the awareness of scientific authors for Open Access in Greece? On the other hand: To what extent has this type of publication already become established in practice?

Giannis: There is a high awareness among the Greek researchers of Open Access in general. However, through their replies we see that this type of publication has been only partly established in practice. Almost two thirds of the researchers mentioned that they have published in an Open Access journal, but then less than a quarter has published in a repository.

The pattern seems consistent across the disciplines. Together with the evidence that we have about the growth of Open Access in Greece, we are led to a state of fragmentation that is further increased by a considerable percentage of researchers that prefer other, for-profit, platforms to self-archive their publications..

Why do academic authors in Greece decide not to publish in Open Access? What are the most common reasons?

Maria: Mainly, it’s the cost of APCs. In our survey, 42,6% of respondents said that they consider the cost of APCs to be very high. There seem to be two more main reasons discouraging researchers to publish in Open Access in Greece. There is a concerning percentage, a bit more than 12%, of those claiming to be hesitant due to the questionable quality of Open Access publishing, meaning they consider it of lower quality. And similar percentage, close to 14%, that said that they have not been properly informed about Open Access publishing.

More than 70% of the respondents have a (rather) positive opinion of Open Access. In fact, however, only just under 37% pursue the goal of publishing in Open Access in Greece. How do you explain this difference?

Maria: : We think that it is a matter of cost, quality, and adequate number of Open Access journals in their field. Most of them would pursue to publish in Open Access if the above-mentioned criteria were met. Also, it’s worth mentioning that a certain number of the respondents regards Open Access only as a way of accessing scholarly content and not as a publication venue.

Only 22% of researchers have ever published their work in a repository. Why are there so few of them?

Athanasia: Well, apart from the fact that almost one third of the respondents said that they don’t know the repository of their institution and a quarter of them prefers to publish and/or post their papers on other platforms and services, we found out, mainly thanks to the interviews, that Open Access is probably regarded and viewed as a way of getting to and accessing scholarly content and not as a publishing act. To a certain extent, researchers also associate repositories primarily with the publication of dissertations and theses.

Open Access in Greece: Perceptions in Academic Institutions by Athanasia Salamoura, Maria Frantzi, Giannis Tsakonas / Scholarly Communication Unit, HEAL-Link

What would have to change for Open Access to become widespread in Greece?

Maria: The most pressing issue is to provide more information and training about Open Access and Open Science to every researcher in Greece, especially to the early career ones, through an institutionalised course of action. Furthermore, a national policy, instrumentalising a mandate for Open Access publishing, would substantially help.

In parallel, the universities and institutions should adopt the Open Access recommendations of HEAL-Link, which will enable both the green and gold Open Access routes in addition to other Open Access models in an effective and sustainable way. In countries like Greece, a multitude of options would work complementary to cover the wide range of publications that varies across language, formats, and disciplinary cultures. To this end, a new approach for the research assessment should be implemented while it’s important to involve and engage all the stakeholders in everything concerning Open Access in Greece.

What actions and what prioritisation do you see in the survey?

Athanasia: A priority would be a long-term information campaign and intensive training about Open Access and Open Science to convince the research community about their benefits. It is important to make the researchers aware not only about the various forms of Open Access, but also about all the developments that transform productively scholarly communication, such as Open Peer Review. Moreover, the researchers should be informed about all the agreements and Open Access initiatives supported by HEAL-Link and get familiar with their institutional repository.

All in all, what do you think – which results can also be transferred to other countries and what is specifically the case in Greece? Why?

Giannis: That more coordinated effort is needed. Libraries cannot proceed alone with Open Access, unless they join forces with other stakeholders to raise awareness, inform and train the researchers. In countries like Greece, the main issue is the lack of culture; and this can change only if all the stakeholders, including the universities’ administration, are persuaded about the benefits of Open Access and are eager to detach from the established forms.

We are happy that, after the survey, we have found some allies to carry our work and we look forward seeing how this will help Open Access in Greece. Finally, the financial aspect of Open Access is influencing disproportionally countries with developing economies to gain ground in a sustainable way. The transition to Open Access is still costly and although one can argue that there are savings in comparison to paywalled publishing, the hardships remain for researchers that cannot afford to cover the expenses. If so, then the good intentions will remain as such, and Open Access will not fulfil its potential as another paradigm for scholarly communication.

Further reading for Open Access enthusiasts

We were talking to:

Athanasia Salamoura Salamoura is a graduate of the Department of Archives, Library Science and Museology of the Ionian University, Greece. She currently is a member of the Scholarly Communication Unit of HEAL-Link, monitoring the Open Access agreements of HEAL-Link with different publishers. She can also be found on ORCID and Twitter.
Portrait: Athanasia Salamoura©

Maria Frantzi is a graduate of the Department of Archives, Library Science and Museology of the Ionian University, Greece, and holds a Master in Byzantine Philology from the University of Patras. Currently, she is an e-resources librarian at the Library and Information Center of the University of Patras, a member of the Steering Committee for Electronic Resources of HEAL-Link and a member of the Scholarly Communication Unit of HEAL-Link. She can also be found on ORCID.
Portrait: Maria Frantzi©

Dr Giannis Tsakonas is the Acting Director of the Library & Information Center, University of Patras, Greece. He also serves on LIBER’s Executive Board as head of the Innovative Scholarly Communication Steering Committee, and on the Board of Directors of Hellenic Academic Libraries Link. He coordinates the work of the Scholarly Communication Unit of HEAL-Link as well. He can also be found on ORCID and Twitter.
Portrait: Dr Giannis Tsakonas©

Featured Image: The building of the Library & Information Center of University of Patras that hosts the Scholarly Communication Unit [CC-BY], photographer: iD Studio

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Science Barometer 2020: Starting Points for Open Science?

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by Claudia Sittner

The Science Barometer – not to be confused with the Barometer for the Academic World – is a representative opinion poll that has been examining the attitude of German citizens to science and research annually since 2014. There were additional surveys in April and May 2020 owing to the corona crisis (“Corona Special”). Last month, the results of the most recent survey from November 2020 were presented.

Brochure Science Barometer 2020 (PDF). The use of the graphics of the results is possible if the source “Wissenschaft im Dialog/Kantar Emnid” is mentioned. The graphics run under the licence [CC BY-ND 4.0], adaptations of the format for editorial publications are permitted.

The Science Barometer was commissioned by the organisation Wissenschaft im Dialog – An initiative of Germany´s scientific community (Science in Dialog, WiD). This non-profit organisation is aimed at promoting dialogue about science and research in Germany and encouraging as many people as possible to take part. WiD also drives forward the further development of science communication and thereby also of Open Science. The survey is sponsored by the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

Around 1,000 citizens from the age of 14 upwards in private households were surveyed during telephone interviews. German-speaking residents formed the parent population. We have taken a look at the results of the Science Barometer 2020 from the perspective of its importance for Open Science in science and research, and present its interesting findings.

Interest stable; traditional media most important source of information

Interest in science and research is stable at 60% of the population and is only exceeded by a 68% interest in local news. That corresponds with the opinion of 59% of those surveyed, who agree with the statement either partly or completely that they personally profit from science and research.

Science Barometer 2020. The use of the graphics of the results is possible if the source “Wissenschaft im Dialog/Kantar Emnid” is mentioned. The graphics run under the licence [CC BY-ND 4.0], adaptations of the format for editorial publications are permitted.

They get their information primarily (80% – occasionally to very frequently) via the traditional media. Less frequently via internet sites of scientific institutions (43%), and in only 29% of cases, those surveyed got their information via research topics on social media. In the light of the corona pandemic, online services of traditional news media became more relevant.

For science and research, this means that it is worth investing more in press and PR work so that relevant scientific findings are taken up by traditional media and can reach the population. Particularly for institutions that are committed to Open Science, this seems to be a good place to start, to ensure that their content and dedication are perceived more strongly. Fittingly, a third of those surveyed are of the opinion that scientists should inform people more strongly about their work.

Trust higher than in previous years; tendency sinking in the COVID-19 year 2020

Trust in science and research is also very high in November 2020 at almost two thirds (60% either tend to trust, or trust completely). In previous years, this value was around 50%. It is interesting here that trust in science and research initially rose sharply – to 77% – at the beginning of the corona pandemic (survey April 2020): in comparison to 2019, four times as many people surveyed trusted it “fully and completely”. However, this value had almost halved again by the time of the November 2020 survey.

Science Barometer 2020. The use of the graphics of the results is possible if the source “Wissenschaft im Dialog/Kantar Emnid” is mentioned. The graphics run under the licence [CC BY-ND 4.0], adaptations of the format for editorial publications are permitted.




This shows a high degree of confidence in science and research at the beginning of the pandemic and could point to a disappointment experienced by many people during the second corona lockdown.

Science Barometer 2020. The use of the graphics of the results is possible if the source “Wissenschaft im Dialog/Kantar Emnid” is mentioned. The graphics run under the licence [CC BY-ND 4.0], adaptations of the format for editorial publications are permitted.

Reasons for the credibility were quoted as expertise, integrity as well as acting in the interests of the general public. Compared to the previous year, the tendency is increasing for all reasons. By contrast, the reasons for mistrust are:

  • Dependency on funders (49% tend to agree, or agree fully and completely),
  • Scientists adjust the findings to their expectations (25% – see above),
  • Often make mistakes (16% – see above).

In comparison to the previous year, however, the agreement with these reasons is to some extent severely reduced. The lowest value since the beginning of the survey series regarding the question of whether people should trust their feelings and their faith instead of science, corresponds to this (23% – tend to agree and agree fully and completely).

For supporters of Open Science, the fact that trust and educational level correlate can play an additional role here: The higher the formal educational level, the greater the trust. If one assumes that in most cases science communication reaches people with a higher level of education in particular, this could be evaluated as a positive sign. For among these people, trust in science and research is high. On the other hand, it also means that science communication needs to make more of an effort to reach people without a higher formal education in order to gain the trust of this group as well.

Corona Special: Science fundamentally important; controversy welcome

When it comes to the coronavirus, the public trust the statements of doctors and medical personnel the most (80% – tend to trust and fully and completely trust), closely followed by trust in the statements of scientists (73% – tend to trust or fully and completely trust). However, some also suspect (39% – tend to agree and fully and completely agree), that scientists are not telling us everything they know about the coronavirus. The same number of respondents also believes that it is important to get information about the virus from outside science.

“The fact that so many people trust in science shows how good the dialogue between science and society is functioning during the pandemic. However, the relatively high number of people who are undecided or sceptical is cause for concern: Science needs to open up even more and also seek to start a dialogue with those who are sceptical. To ensure that this occurs, we need to support all researchers in communicating their knowledge, their results and their working methods”.

— WiD CEO Markus Weißkopf.

Overall, the public wants political decisions in the context of the corona pandemic to be based on scientific findings. Direct interference by scientists in politics, on the other hand, is not desired. On the whole, this is good news for Open Science enthusiasts, as it means that they are awarded credibility in issues regarding corona, and it is therefore worth conducting one’s research as openly as possible and communicating one’s own work. It also shows that Open Science can score points with the public, precisely because of its transparency: Results can be openly understood, and there are no obligatory intermediaries such as journalists, who filter and evaluate the information.

Science Barometer 2020. The use of the graphics of the results is possible if the source “Wissenschaft im Dialog/Kantar Emnid” is mentioned. The graphics run under the licence [CC BY-ND 4.0], adaptations of the format for editorial publications are permitted.

By contrast, increasingly less credibility is ascribed to the statements of politicians and journalists. One can conclude that researchers would be well advised to communicate coronavirus´ issues to the public themselves or to aim for a very close collaboration with the traditional media. The format of (scientific) podcasts (German) has proven to be a good option for this during the corona crisis – the number of listeners and their popularity have strongly increased over the previous year.

There is a very high level of trust that researchers are clearly communicating whether their statements are verified findings or open issues on the topic of the COVID-19 pandemic (46% – tend to agree and fully and completely agree; 40% undecided). Controversies among scientists are evaluated as being positive and informative by more than two thirds of those asked. For the Open Science community, this is a confirmation that it should campaign for discourse to be opened up and create spaces, so that this can take place transparently, publicly and comprehensibly.

This is even more important, because there are also people who “in the corona pandemic prefer to rely on ‘common sense’ than on scientific studies. It is even more important to communicate facts and recommendations for action via diverse formats, in order to reach those who are uncertain and have doubts”, confirms Tina Stengele, provisional head of the science division at the Robert Bosch Stiftung, which is supporting the Science Barometer.

Science Barometer and Open Science: Strengthen science communication

Applying and verifying scientific findings quickly has become more important than ever, owing to the corona crisis. This has led to science taking on a more prominent role amongst the public, whose trust in researchers and their integrity was also strong according to the last survey of the Science Barometer.“

“A decisive pillar in strengthening and extending trust is the accessibility and comprehensibility of research results.. (…) This strengthens us in our conviction that it is a successful model to explain findings and developments straightforwardly, to classify them and to present their benefits – for experts and laypersons alike”.

— Janis Eitner, director of communication at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

From an Open Science perspective, now is certainly still a good time for urging the scientific system to become even more open in all its subprocesses, and for using professional science communication more widely, on own channels such as podcasts or on a stable cooperation with the traditional media. The negotiating position for more Open Science is favourable right now, and the experiences from the pandemic have made it unmistakably clear to everyone how important having a more open ecosystem of free knowledge is and will be in times of global crises.

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References
Portrait: Photo Claudia Sittner©
The use of the graphics of the results is possible if the source “Wissenschaft im Dialog/Kantar Emnid” is mentioned. The graphics run under the licence [CC BY-ND 4.0], adaptations of the format for editorial publications are permitted.

This text has been translated from German.

The post Science Barometer 2020: Starting Points for Open Science? first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.The post Science Barometer 2020: Starting Points for Open Science? first appeared on Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science.