How Every Government Fell Short of UNESCO’s Open Science Recommendations

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In November 2021, UNESCO’s General Conference unanimously adopted the Recommendation on Open Science, establishing the first global framework for making scientific knowledge more accessible, reusable, transparent and equitable. The Recommendation was adopted by 193 countries; UNESCO currently has 194 Member States.

Yet governments have not converted that agreement into a functioning global system of open science.

The most defensible conclusion is not that every government has done nothing. Several countries have introduced open-access mandates, repositories, infrastructure and national strategies. The more accurate conclusion is this:

No government has demonstrated comprehensive implementation of UNESCO’s full open science framework, and governments collectively have failed to create the universal, equitable system they unanimously endorsed.

This failure is visible in weak reporting, incomplete implementation plans, inadequate monitoring, unequal infrastructure and academic evaluation systems that continue to reward institutional status more reliably than open scientific contribution.

What UNESCO Actually Recommended

The UNESCO Recommendation defines open science much more broadly than free access to journal articles. It includes:

• open scientific publications;
• open research data;
• open-source software and source code;
• open hardware;
• open educational resources;
• community-governed research infrastructure;
• citizen and participatory science;
• engagement with Indigenous and traditional knowledge systems;
• transparent research evaluation;
• equitable opportunities to participate in science.

UNESCO recommends that publicly funded research outputs be openly licensed or placed in the public domain wherever legally and ethically possible. It also asks governments to support non-commercial infrastructure, open-source technology, multilingual scientific communication, long-term data preservation and responsible evaluation of researchers.

This is not merely a recommendation to upload more PDFs. It is a proposal to change who can participate in science, how scientific work is evaluated, what outputs receive recognition and who controls scientific infrastructure.

Governments Failed Even to Report Consistently

UNESCO Member States committed to submitting national implementation reports every four years. However, only 77 countries had submitted reports by June 2025, forming the basis of the first global monitoring cycle.

That means most UNESCO Member States did not participate in the initial reporting process.

Later UNESCO reporting incorporated information from 81 countries. Even within that more engaged group, implementation remained incomplete:

• 79% reported having an open science policy framework;
• only 41% had an implementation plan;
• only about one-third had a monitoring mechanism.

In other words, many governments adopted principles without establishing the operational machinery needed to enforce, finance or measure them.

A policy without a budget, implementation schedule, responsible authority and monitoring system is closer to a declaration of intention than to an implemented reform.

Open Access Is Still Geographically Unequal

Open science was supposed to reduce global inequality in access to knowledge. Instead, much of its infrastructure remains concentrated in already wealthy regions.

UNESCO reported in 2023 that approximately 85% of open publication and data repositories were located in Western Europe and North America. Africa accounted for less than 2%, while the Arab region accounted for less than 3%.

This creates a structural contradiction. Researchers in poorer countries may theoretically receive access to publications, yet still lack:

• reliable research infrastructure;
• long-term data storage;
• high-performance computing;
• institutional technical support;
• funds for article processing charges;
• professional data stewards;
• recognition for locally important research;
• control over the platforms that store their work.

Open science cannot be equitable when one part of the world owns most of the infrastructure and another part is expected primarily to supply data, labour or research subjects.

Governments Replaced Subscription Barriers With Publication Barriers

Some open-access systems remove fees from readers but impose them on authors through article processing charges.

This can make a paper free to read while making publication unaffordable for independent researchers, unfunded scientists and institutions in lower-income countries. UNESCO has explicitly warned that high publication charges may increase inequality and encourage predatory behaviour.

Consequently, a government cannot claim to have implemented open science merely because its researchers publish in journals labelled “open access.”

A genuinely open system must consider whether researchers can afford to publish, whether repositories are publicly controlled, whether data and code are reusable, and whether valuable work outside conventional articles receives recognition.

Governments Have Not Reformed Scientific Evaluation

One of UNESCO’s most consequential recommendations concerns research assessment.

Member States are asked to encourage evaluation systems that recognize the diversity of research outputs, activities and missions. They are also asked to remove barriers created by existing career evaluation and award systems and to reward good open science practices.

Nevertheless, researchers are still commonly evaluated through:

• journal prestige;
• citation counts;
• institutional affiliation;
• academic rank;
• grant history;
• number of papers;
• possession of formal degrees.

Datasets, software maintenance, replication, peer review, negative results, educational resources and contributions by independent researchers often receive much less recognition.

UNESCO itself identified conventional research assessment as a structural barrier to implementing open science.

This may be the central failure. Governments can build repositories, but researchers will not consistently use them well while careers and funding remain tied to closed journals, prestigious institutions and narrow publication metrics.

Do UNESCO’s Recommendations Contradict the Three-Degree System?

Not formally.

The three-degree—or three-cycle—system divides higher education into bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral studies. Under the Bologna Process, participating European countries agreed to use this structure to improve comparability, mobility and recognition of qualifications.

UNESCO’s Open Science Recommendation does not demand the abolition of bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees. Degrees can serve legitimate purposes:

• organizing educational programmes;
• certifying completion of structured study;
• preparing students for specialized professions;
• providing supervised research training;
• establishing admission pathways to further education.

The contradiction arises only when the degree system becomes a hierarchy of permission to participate in science.

Where the Real Contradiction Appears

A degree records a particular educational achievement. It does not logically determine whether every later scientific claim, proof, dataset, program or invention produced by that person is valid.

UNESCO defines open science actors broadly. Its list includes not only university researchers but also students, software developers, coders, engineers, citizen scientists, Indigenous knowledge holders, civil-society organizations, librarians, funders and members of the public.

The Recommendation also states that opportunities to access, contribute to and benefit from open science should not depend on career stage, socioeconomic status, nationality, discipline or institutional position.

Therefore, the following practices conflict with the spirit of the Recommendation:

• refusing to evaluate research because its author lacks a doctorate;
• excluding independent researchers from funding automatically;
• treating university affiliation as evidence of correctness;
• preventing non-degree contributors from receiving scientific credit;
• recognizing software, datasets or proofs only when attached to conventional papers;
• using degrees as substitutes for evaluating actual scientific outputs.

The three-degree system and open science are compatible only when degrees remain educational qualifications rather than monopolistic licences to create knowledge.

Degrees Should Not Be the Unit of Scientific Merit

Scientific merit belongs primarily to contributions, not credentials.

A doctoral degree may provide relevant evidence about training and experience. It may justify an initial presumption of competence in a particular field. But it cannot prove that a new result is correct, important or useful. Conversely, the absence of a doctorate cannot prove that a contribution is wrong or worthless.

A system consistent with UNESCO’s principles would evaluate:

• the correctness of a result;
• the transparency of its method;
• the availability of supporting data and code;
• reproducibility;
• originality;
• usefulness to other research;
• successful maintenance of scientific infrastructure;
• responses to criticism;
• independent verification.

Degrees may be included as contextual information, but they should not replace examination of the work itself.

UNESCO’s separate Global Convention on Higher Education supports fair, transparent and non-discriminatory recognition of qualifications and also recognizes prior learning and non-traditional learning modes. This shows that even UNESCO’s qualification policy is moving toward greater flexibility rather than rigid credential hierarchy.

How the Degree System Could Be Made Compatible With Open Science

Governments do not need to abolish universities or academic degrees. They need to separate education, employment and scientific evaluation more carefully.

A compatible system would preserve degrees while introducing several reforms:

Open participation

Independent researchers, citizen scientists, software developers and other contributors should be allowed to submit work for evaluation without requiring institutional affiliation.

Output-based evaluation

Proofs, datasets, software, replications, protocols, monographs, educational materials and infrastructure work should be evaluated as scientific contributions in their own right.

Transparent criteria

Funding and recognition decisions should explain which properties of the work were evaluated and why a decision was made.

Portable reputation

A contributor’s verified work should remain visible independently of the university, company or country in which it was produced.

Open infrastructure

Repositories, metadata systems and evaluation records should use interoperable formats and, where possible, open-source and community-governed infrastructure.

Recognition of unequal contributions

Scientific credit should be divisible. A person who maintains software, identifies an error, supplies data or verifies a proof should receive recognition for that specific contribution.

These principles are also relevant to proposals such as AI Internet-Meritocracy, which seeks to assess and reward actual contributions rather than relying exclusively on institutional position.

Why Governments Fell Short

The principal problem was not that governments misunderstood the words “open access.” The problem was that full implementation would require governments to challenge institutions on which their own science policies depend.

Universities benefit from controlling credentials. Publishers benefit from controlling prestigious publication venues. Funding agencies benefit administratively from filtering applicants through degrees, affiliations and previous grants. Governments benefit from delegating difficult evaluation decisions to these established organizations.

As discussed in how government can make collective organization worse, the existence of official institutions can create an illusion that a problem has already been solved. A ministry of science, national academy or university system does not by itself establish an open, fair or effective scientific system.

UNESCO asked governments to reform not only access to publications but also incentives, infrastructure, participation and evaluation. Governments generally implemented the least disruptive components while leaving the underlying hierarchy substantially intact.

The Correct Verdict

It would be inaccurate to claim that every government completely ignored UNESCO. Some countries have made substantial progress, and UNESCO reports growth in national policies and infrastructure.

But it is reasonable to conclude that governments have collectively failed to fulfil the Recommendation:

• most countries did not participate in the first reporting cycle;
• many reporting countries lacked implementation plans;
• most lacked effective monitoring;
• infrastructure remains geographically unequal;
• publication charges continue to exclude researchers;
• conventional career evaluation remains dominant;
• independent and non-traditional contributors remain structurally disadvantaged.

The three-degree system is not inherently contrary to open science. Its misuse as a gatekeeping system is.

A bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree may certify education. It should not determine who is permitted to contribute knowledge, whose work deserves examination or who may receive recognition for a valid scientific contribution.

Until governments make that distinction operational, open science will remain an officially endorsed ideal rather than a universally accessible scientific system.

Authoritative Sources

• UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science
• UNESCO Open Science implementation and monitoring
• UNESCO’s first national reporting consultation
• The Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area
• UNESCO Global Convention on Higher Education