Open and responsible science at Syke

On this page, we have summarized Syke's goals, policies, and commitments to promoting open and responsible science, as well as the principles that underpin these policies.

Our goals for open and responsible science

Through open and responsible science, we aim to:

• Improve the quality, reliability, and scientific impact of our research.
• Strengthen the impact of our research in building a sustainable society.
• Create conditions for innovation and new forms of collaboration.
• Ensure that the knowledge we produce is equally and fairly accessible.

Our policies and commitments related to open and responsible science

• We are committed to the Finnish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and also follow other guidelines of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK), such as the ethical principles of research with human participants and agreeing on authorship of research publications. 
  Reserach integrity
  Advice and materials, Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK (tenk.fi)
• We are committed to the national declaration for open science and research and its policies. The principles of open knowledge and science are embedded in Syke's strategy.
  Declaration for open science and research 2025-2030 (avointiede,fi)
• We have signed the international agreement on reforming research assessment (CoARA) and developed an action plan to promote responsible research assessment at Syke, as well as documented our principles in research assessment.
  The Agreement – CoARA (coara.eu)
• Our research data policy promotes openness and impact. We provide open data and information for building a sustainable environment and society.
• Our publication policy requires that we publish openly, diversely, and impactfully, aiming for high-quality publications.
• Our open-source code policy encourages opening the source code.
• We follow the FAIR principles, especially for digital data. The FAIR principles mean that data is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. We apply these principles to other materials, publications, and services as well.
  FAIR principles (fairdata.fi)
• Our collaboration principles require that we ensure independence, avoid conflicts of interest, verify the responsibility of our partners, and ensure the confidentiality and fairness of our commercial activities.
• Our artificial intelligence policy outlines the principles, ethical guidelines, legal requirements, and management practices for the use and development of AI-based models and applications at Syke. It emphasizes the importance of responsibility, transparency, fairness, non-discrimination, and safety in the use of AI.
• We promote equality and non-discrimination in our work community. We prevent and address discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

Our principles in promoting open and responsible science

Our activities are based on good research practices and the openness and transparency of research and expert work. Central to our activities are societal impact and the promotion of environmental awareness. We integrate research and expert work and produce long-term monitoring data on the state of the environment. We collect, manage, refine, and disseminate various environmental information for reporting tasks required by EU legislation and international agreements. These tasks and the management of related data and databases bring their own unique characteristics to our research and knowledge management.

We promote the responsibility and openness of research through the principles described below.

We build a sustainable society through open collaboration and by sharing results early

• We are open and active in collaboration. We engage actively with societal actors about the content and results of our research, both nationally and internationally. We use open tools and platforms for collaboration and communication.
• Our research collaboration is based on clearly agreed rules with our partners. We ensure the independence and impartiality of our own activities and verify the responsibility of our partners' activities.
• We engage citizens in research. We mainstream the methods of transdisciplinary citizen science and deepen and diversify the inclusion of citizens in different stages of the research process, from research planning to data collection and result interpretation. Thus, we promote a just sustainability transformation and increase the impact and legitimacy of our research.
• We share our research results as early as possible. Our scientific publications are available when we bring our results into societal discussion and contribute to solving environmental problems. We aim at publishing our research articles as pre-prints simultaneously with their submission to peer-reviewed journals.

We accelerate the sustainability transformation by publishing our research outputs and methods immediately as open

• We publish articles and reports primarily as open access. We use the CC-BY license whenever possible. We enable open publishing through agreements with publishers, by covering open publishing costs when necessary, and by self-archiving articles in a publication repository. The transfer of publication metadata to national and international publication archives ensures the findability and accessibility of publications.
• We ensure the usability and interoperability of our research data by following good data management practices throughout the data lifecycle. We primarily publish data openly under a CC-BY license in national and international services that support data findability and accessibility. We particularly promote the visibility and reuse of data collected and maintained by Syke on the state of the environment and environmental awareness.
• We document essential research methods, models, codes, and protocols, as well as other materials that promote the validation of research results. We open the stages and details of our research that are essential for assessing its reproducibility, reliability, and accuracy, using appropriate tools, at the latest when publishing the results.
• The information and services provided by our research infrastructures (tools, equipment, networks, data, and electronic services) are openly available, transparent, and shared. They strengthen research and innovation capabilities and follow the FAIR principles.
• The digital services and content we produce are easily accessible to everyone in compliance with the EU Accessibility Act.

We ensure the responsibility of our research and its assessment

• We adhere to good research practices and ensure the reliability, honesty, and impartiality of our research. We show respect and consideration for both people and the environment and take responsibility for our actions. We actively communicate our practices of research ethics and responsibility.
• We evaluate our research responsibly and transparently. We assess the performance, quality, and societal impact of the research. We take into account the diversity of research tasks and outputs. We evaluate outputs and impacts both quantitatively and qualitatively and value openness.

We consider the limitations of openness

• We identify situations where it is necessary to restrict openness due to legal requirements, national security, protection of personal data, or other justified reasons. Restrictions are based on case-by-case security and risk assessments. Restrictions on openness may be required by agreements with third parties, issues related to environmental protection or endangered species, commercialization of research results, and trade secrets. In opening the research process, we consider aspects such as researcher safety, external attempts to influence the content of the research, trade secrets, and environmental protection.
• We adhere to the appropriate level of openness for each dataset. The level of openness of Syke's research data, i.e., accessibility and reusability, ranges from fully open to restricted or closed. Open data is freely available to everyone, restricted data requires, for example, registration or acceptance of terms of use, and closed data is available only to certain parties, for example, due to confidentiality obligations.

We monitor and support the progress of open science

• We monitor the progress of open science at Syke by using national indicators. We coordinate our open science activities and services internally.
• We participate in national and international open science collaboration, taking into account our own resources.