The Barcelona Declaration in Switzerland
On 11 March 2026, we hosted our first Spring Event! For this webinar, representatives of the three first Swiss signatories of the Barcelona Declaration were sharing their motivation to sign, and their plans to imply their commitment.
The representatives were:
- Anne Gentil-Beccot, Open Science Team CERN
- Melanie Röthlisberger, Open Science Office University of Zürich and University Library
- Daniel Stekhoven, Swiss Reproducibility Network
What does the Barcelona Declaration address?
Academic decision-making is increasingly informed by research data analytics and indicators. Open sources are crucial because they enable full access, reusability, and transparency in research information. The Barcelona Declaration responds directly to this need by committing institutions to openness in both producing and using research information, while supporting open infrastructures and collective action.
CERN: Open science as institutional DNA
Keywords: open infrastructure; community-led metadata
Link to slides: https://zenodo.org/records/19332556
Speaker: Anne Gentil-Beccot
CERN has a longstanding commitment to Open Science. This is proven in both the founding convention of the international institute, as well as the long list of community-led, open infrastructures originating from CERN and spreading all over the world – for example Zenodo, where also SOAD is hosting material from our meetings and community.
“We are really lucky because we have somehow open science in our DNA,” as Anne Gentil-Beccot pointed out.
Therefore, after becoming part of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) in 2021, signing the Barcelona Declaration in 2024 was just one more step towards openness. With the directorate signing the declaration, the Open Science team is ensuring the implementation of the associated actions.
In line with the Barcelona Declaration, CERN supports Open Science infrastructures, such as DataCite or DOAJ. Such infrastructures are not just a technical preference but are acknowledged as foundational to sustainable and transparent research information. In practice, evaluation of CERN’s impact is already fully based on open metadata from their own repository as subscriptions with Scopus and Web Science having been terminated. One of the next steps in the action plan for the upcoming five years, communication will also address individual researchers more directly, bringing everybody on the same page.
University of Zurich: From commitment to implementation
Keywords: cultural change; responsible metrics
Link to slides: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19052188
Speaker: Melanie Röthlisberger
The University of Zurich is following a path that is focusing more on encouraging a cultural shift than on providing infrastructure, as Melanie Röthlisberger pointed out. They follow this path since more than a decade now. After signing the DORA declaration in 2014, an Open Science Policy with recommendations towards practising Open Science has been published in 2021, and in 2022, UZH also signed CoARA. To further formalize the willingness to change, the Working Group Open Science has been founded in January 2025, where it was a short path from discussing the Barcelona Declaration in June to finally signing it in July 2025.
During the discussion and thereafter, the working group identified four major arguments towards signing the declaration. For one, commercial databases tend to be biased towards MINT disciplines, leaving for example law and humanities at an unjust disadvantage. Second, the WG discussed that closing of commercial databases to exclude AI bots will come along with a decrease of informational value also for the researchers. Third, with the commitment to open research information, researchers will have access to the databases that are used for their assessment. And finally, they expect a better position when it comes to negotiating, backing up their arguments with data.
Of course, their decision is also embedded in a bigger picture. The Barcelona Declaration is a follow-up of CoARA and DORA, already signed by the University of Zurich. It is also backed up by other LERU universities in Europe, such as Universities of Leiden or Edinburgh.
Within a comprehensive university, there will not be a one-plan-fits-all. So among the next steps are drafting an action plan, and assess how and to which extent different groups are using Scopus and Web of Science to make a sound weigh up of costs and benefits of using closed infrastructures. Secondly, the institutional database ZORA will be extended to include other research output than just publications. Simultaneously, the interoperability across repositories is targeted by participating in the NAIF project.
While there surely will be challenges, Melanie assured “we will keep an open mind”.
Swiss Reproducibility Network: A call to act
Keywords: collective action; institutional momentum
Link to slides: https://zenodo.org/records/18981207
Speaker: Daniel Stekhoven
Representing the Swiss Reproducibility Network rather than a single institution, Daniel Stekhoven brought a deliberately provocative perspective to the discussion. His talk focused on the gap between widespread agreement on the importance of openness and the hesitation many institutions still show when it comes to formal commitment.
“Everyone knows that open research information is the right thing to do.”
He contrasted the strong ecosystem of open science initiatives in Switzerland with the still limited number of institutional signatories, suggesting that many organizations agree in principle but hesitate over costs, implementation burdens, or governance processes.
“What they really are trying to say is: we all agree with it, but we would like someone else to go first.”
The Swiss Reproducibility Network’s position was clear: the Barcelona Declaration should not be treated as an abstract ideology, but as a practical and overdue next step. In this view, commitment itself can help create momentum, align fragmented initiatives, and strengthen coordination across institutions.
“Probably the easiest way to do it is to just sign it and see how you want to implement it afterwards.”
At the same time, the later discussion acknowledged an important caveat: commitment without follow-through risks losing momentum. That tension —between immediate commitment and meaningful implementation — became one of the most interesting themes of the session.
A broader discussion: what Barcelona adds
In the discussion, participants reflected on how the Barcelona Declaration relates to DORA and CoARA. One key takeaway was that Barcelona brings a more focused emphasis on open research information and the infrastructures behind it. While DORA and CoARA concentrate on research assessment reform, Barcelona addresses the underlying question of how research information is collected, stored, accessed, and governed.
This makes the declaration highly complementary: if institutions want responsible and transparent assessment, they also need open and sustainable research infrastructure to support this.
Looking ahead
SOAD’s first webinar offered a strong opening for deeper community discussion in Switzerland around open academic data, research information, and infrastructure. The session showed that institutions are approaching the Barcelona Declaration from different angles: some from a strong open infrastructure tradition, some from commitment to research assessment reform, and some from community-led advocacy. Yet across these perspectives, a shared message emerged: openness in research information is increasingly central to trust, fairness, and sustainability in academia.
The SOAD community thanks all speakers, organizers, and the audience for making this first spring webinar such a thoughtful and engaging exchange.