The Open Research Funders Group (ORFG) has diligently nurtured vibrant open scholarship communities within the philanthropic, higher education, and professional society sectors. The recent US federal guidance sharing publicly funded research marks an inflection point for open scholarship. Federal agencies in the US are celebrating 2023 as the Year of Open Science. It recalibrates baseline expectations for paper and article sharing, in a manner that will spur a flurry of activity to align with these new norms. The ORFG seeks to meet this moment by working within and across these sectors to catalyze, harmonize, and scale open scholarship activities. This includes specific interventions and collaborations to demonstrably advance reward systems, infrastructure, training, support, and good practices.

The ORFG has prepared for this moment by building durable coalitions committed to operationalizing open scholarship. Through their leadership of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science, they have, in the past year, launched the Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship (HELIOS), a network of 88 US colleges and universities; the Alliance for Open Scholarship (All4OS), a coalition of 10 professional societies and associations; and the Philanthropic Leaders Open Scholarship Cohort, a cohort of 60 private funders. These groups have each developed their own workstreams, and, critically, have begun to collaborate — along with US federal agencies — to ensure that their activities are consistent with shared missions and values. This cross-sector collaboration places an emphasis on making open scholarship easier, more sustainable, more inclusive, and more rewarding.

Funding for this project will enable the ORFG to maximize the utility of these sector-specific communities, identify productive areas for collaboration, and serve as drivers of this crucial next phase.