Assessing Open Science values at Utrecht University

Collaborations between science and society, for instance in transdisciplinary research projects, are an integral part of Open Science across various policy and intellectual movements. While evaluation of transdisciplinary research focuses on individual researchers, we wanted to document how University Utrecht's local CRIS system, PURE, and OpenAIRE afford the evaluation of transdisciplinary research on a departmental level.

As a pilot project, we documented how Open Science is understood and operationalised at three different levels at Utrecht University with specific attention to transdisciplinary research. Then, we evaluated the viability of OpenAIRE data and the local UU repository (PURE) for departmental research assessments. Finally, we provided recommendations that will feed the preparations for the next departmental evaluation in view of new research practices. 

We find that actual data (of the department's researchers) and potential data (categories that exist, but are not populated) provide only limited use for informing research assessments on transdisciplinarity. We contextualise through 'lock-in' mechanisms in research information infrastructures that value objects over processes, where research value of transdisciplinarity is moving toward the latter.