Open Science Governance

CERN’s Open Science governance is designed to ensure strategic coherence, clear accountability, and effective implementation across the organisation’s diverse Open Science domains. With the start of the 2026–2030 mandate, strategic ownership of Open Science is held at institutional level under the authority of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), reflecting the importance of Open Science as a core component of CERN’s digital strategy and external scientific leadership.

Strategic oversight is provided by the Open Science Steering Board (OSSB), which is responsible for maintaining CERN’s Open Science direction, ensuring alignment across policy domains such as Open Access, Open Data, and Open Source, and approving institutional monitoring and reporting, including the biennial CERN Open Science Report. The OSSB serves as CERN’s primary forum for Open Science governance and for the escalation of cross-domain strategic questions.

Operational implementation and service delivery remain distributed across CERN’s specialised organisations and expert communities. The CERN Open Science Office, hosted within the Scientific Information Service (SIS), coordinates day-to-day implementation, supports Open Science services, and provides secretariat functions for the OSSB and related bodies. Domain-specific expert groups, including the Open Source Programme Office (OSPO) and the Open Data Working Group, support implementation within their respective areas, while the Open Science Practitioners Forum (OSPF) provides an inclusive platform for practitioners across CERN to exchange experience and contribute bottom-up expertise. Together, this layered model preserves CERN’s collaborative culture while providing the institutional clarity and coordination required to advance Open Science at scale.