Empowering open science principles, practices, and policies is essential in meeting our ambitious goal of ensuring all publically funded research outputs are available as open access with a CC license. 

The Enduring Value of Open Science

At Creative Commons (CC), we believe knowledge is a public good and a human right. When we have access to the world’s knowledge we can tackle the world’s greatest problems. Knowledge helps us understand a problem’s components and causes—insights which can be mobilized into education, innovation, and technologies that can address the problem. Yet, knowledge that is accessible, discoverable, and reusable is the exception rather than the norm. For example, only 44% of papers authored by researchers in the United States are openly accessible. And, only half of all climate publications are openly accessible; a stunning figure considering the global implications of the climate crisis.

The good news is that we have the tools, infrastructures, and licenses that can actively enable access to knowledge. Open Access, removing all barriers to access and applying an open license, ideally CC BY, is a simple, yet revolutionary approach to sharing publicly funded research. Imagine if all of the research that is produced as a public good was available openly? What discoveries, from climate to cancer, energy to education, from fake news to forests, and so much more, would help us to meet our vision of a world where education, culture, and science are equitably shared as a means to benefit humanity?

CC is engaging in work to change the status quo. Our open science program leverages the CC licences and expertise in open licensing across the research process including publications, data and other outputs. Open science is a prerequisite to faster, more equitable, global solutions to the world’s greatest challenges.

We work with researchers, librarians, consortia, policy makers, and other stakeholders in scholarly communication to equip them with education and training about our licences so that they can implement open science practices and increase access to knowledge within their communities. Our approach is driven by the belief that collectively, as an open community, we can go much further than we can alone. We embed collective organizing throughout our projects and catalyze actions that induce change towards more accessible, discoverable, and reusable research outputs.

Current Projects and Impact Areas

Open Climate

Collective climate action in the open ecosystem

Open access is a necessary condition for solving the climate crisis. Open access to climate knowledge and data drives increased equitable collaboration in finding faster solutions to the climate crisis and contributes to a robust open knowledge commons which helps to address the information crisis, fight dis/misinformation, and better inform policy making. At CC, we are engaging in collective climate action by opening access to climate knowledge and information. Learn more [link to child page].

Open Preprints

Enabling the full potential of preprints 

Today, there are many opportunities throughout the scientific publishing process where results can be shared, and even improved, before formal publication. Preprints offer researchers an opportunity to freely share their work earlier enabling earlier feedback and better publications. We envision a scholarly communication ecosystem where all preprints benefit from a CC BY license so that preprints are better positioned to disrupt a closed system of accessing and sharing science. The CC Openly Licensed Preprints project works with preprint servers to increase the adoption of CC BY licenses on preprints, otherwise known as the version of a manuscript before undergoing formal peer review. By equipping preprints with CC BY licenses, we enable faster and greater dissemination and re-use of research. Learn more [link to child page]

Open Science and AI

Reconciling open science and AI

At CC, we believe that there is the potential for positive applications of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). We also recognize the legitimate concerns of researchers who are now discovering they are participating in a system they did not choose, do not fully understand, and have no visibility into or control over. An AI ecosystem that will ultimately benefit society should function like a true commons, with good governance, transparency, and reciprocity.

In the context of open science, we must ensure that the current lopsided AI system does not   threaten the decades of progress the open movement has made towards open sharing of research outputs. Researchers and knowledge producing institutions need better tools to understand the risks and benefits of AI and the commons needs to be protected against systems that lead to enclosure. We are actively engaged in this discussion and see a role for CC in addressing creator and researcher concerns by advocating for an alternative AI ecosystem powered by quality training data with clear legal status, where the benefits were more equally distributed and where all participants had more agency and certainty. Check back regularly to learn more about our plans.

Open Science Policy

Employing our expertise to move open science forward

CC recognizes the power of policy to change in how knowledge is shared. Institutions with open access policies, for example, have a majority of the research they fund available as open access. CC actively develops and contributes to open science and access policies with funders, institutions, national governments and international bodies like UNESCO. You can read about some of the work CC has engaged in here.

Past Projects

CC has been at the forefront of open science for over two decades and has had the opportunity to build, and contribute to, many groundbreaking open science approaches, directly through funded projects, and through education, training, and policy support.

Open Climate Campaign

The Open Climate Campaign was a project led by CC, SPARC and EIFL with funding from Arcadia Fund which advocated to make the open sharing of research the norm in climate science. The Campaign engaged in open access policy development, advocacy, coalition convening and experimenting with different approaches to unbind locked climate research. The Open Climate Campaign wrapped up operations at the end 2024.[link to wrap up blog post]

Science Commons

Science Commons was launched in 2005 with the goal of bringing the openness and sharing that have made the CC licenses a success in the arts and cultural fields to the world of science. Science Commons helped explore the intersection of the web, legal tools, and scholarly publishing for the benefit of scientific discovery, innovation, and collaboration.

Join Us

We love to connect with others who are working to advance open science approaches! We truly believe in the transformative potential of the CC licenses in meeting the ambition of open science globally. As a small nonprofit organization, your support means the world, to us, and to everyone everywhere who can now access science as a public good. Send us an email at info@creativecommons.org to connect. Take a look at our learning and training opportunities, including the CC Certificate. Please also consider making a donation so that we can continue this work.