Open Knowledge Action Plan

Summary

An institutional roadmap for 2019–2030 that guides the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) in its transformation into an open and global knowledge hub, integrating open science policies and services, FAIR data, responsible assessment, open innovation and alignment with the 2030 Agenda.

Promoting organizations

Led by the UOC as an institutional strategy for open knowledge, with the involvement of academic, research, library, management and governance areas. Its development is structured around the Open Knowledge Action Plan and the Institutional Open Knowledge Policy.

Objectives

The UOC’s Open Knowledge Action Plan arose from the need to organize and broaden opening-up practices that had previously been developed only partially, especially around open access to publications. It starts from a broader diagnosis: social and global challenges require universities to act as knowledge hubs, capable of connecting internal and external, academic and social knowledge, and of making the knowledge they generate accessible, reusable and transferable. Within this framework, the UOC proposes a roadmap to open up the university, co-create and share knowledge, project it outwards and incorporate external contributions, with the aim of becoming an open and global knowledge hub aligned with the 2030 Agenda (UOC, 2019).

The plan organizes this transformation around six thematic axes and three cross-cutting axes. The former seek to make scientific publications open by default, ensure that research data follow FAIR principles, promote open learning resources, foster collaborative innovation, strengthen engagement with society, and advance towards more qualitative, responsible research assessment oriented towards social impact. The cross-cutting axes, focused on training, open infrastructures and participation in reference spaces, support cultural, technical and institutional change (UOC, 2019).

Implementation is reinforced by the Institutional Open Knowledge Policy, approved in 2021, which replaces the 2010 open access policy and broadens the scope to all types of knowledge generated at the UOC. The policy sets objectives up to 2030 for academic publications, theses, research data, teaching resources, learning publications and institutional documentation; defines support mechanisms such as deposit in the O2 Repositorio UOC, advice, FAIR data, open licences, interoperability, preservation and monitoring; and assigns responsibilities to governing bodies, teaching and research staff, doctoral researchers, students, management staff and support areas (UOC, 2021).

Beneficiaries and stakeholders

UOC research and teaching staff, as well as students, are the direct beneficiaries. Indirect beneficiaries include academic institutions, evaluators, funders, companies and start-ups, and society as a whole, which can access and reuse the knowledge generated.

Results

The opening up of publications and content in the O2 Repositorio UOC has expanded: total documents increased from 14,000 in 2019 to 19,345 in 2023, open access articles rose from 56% to 69.2%, and open access doctoral theses reached 92.2% in 2023 (UOC, 2023).
A total of 2,494 learning resources were published openly in 2023, compared with 1,613 in 2019, and all learning resources are published openly once six semesters have elapsed (UOC, 2023).
In relation to FAIR data, the UOC reports 90 datasets published openly, 16 datasets published in CORA.RDR, and support services for preparing data management plans and depositing research data (UOC, 2023).
New criteria have been incorporated into internal research calls, including scientific quality, alternative indicators, social impact, diversity of outputs, transparency and openness; in addition, CoARA was signed and the SPACE rubric was published in Catalan and Spanish (UOC, 2023).
In 2025, the UOC reports that 73.2% of its scientific output was open access, above the national average of 69.8%, and links this figure to its successive open knowledge policies and plans (UOC, 2026).

Challenges

The implementation of the Plan requires overcoming structural obstacles in the transition towards an open university: there is no single recipe, and it requires internal transformation, institutional coordination and cross-cutting cultural change across academia, research and management. In assessment, the plan itself recognizes that the UOC’s scope for external action is limited. The 2021 policy adds the need for monitoring, periodic review and adaptation to regulatory changes and national and international guidelines (UOC, 2019; UOC, 2021).

Interest and transferability

The interest of the initiative lies in offering an institutional model for universities seeking to move from isolated open access actions to a cross-cutting open knowledge strategy. Its transferable elements include the combination of a roadmap, institutional policy, support services, repository, FAIR data, open licences, training, indicators and revision of assessment criteria. The aim is not to replicate the plan literally, but to adapt this architecture to each institution’s capacities, priorities and governance (UOC, 2019; UOC, 2021).

DORA reinforces its value as an external reference by presenting the UOC as a case study in research assessment reform, with a shift from criteria centred on publications and journals towards a broader assessment of achievements, social impact and responsible use of metrics. Transfer requires institutional leadership, technical and library coordination, dialogue with the academic community and alignment with agencies and external frameworks, making it partial and conditional (DORA, 2020).