Evaluation of Open Science for co-creation of Social Innovations: A conceptual framework

Open Science is a rapidly expanding and diversifying field of social innovation with significant implications for and potential benefits to society, policy and various academic research areas. However, much is still unknown about the co-creation processes in Open Science and an overall conceptual framework which aids such understanding is missing. The article aims to address these limitations and identify the key dimensions of an ecosystem allowing co-creation in Open Science to unfold its social and economic impact. The research presented integrates the literature analysis on co-creation in multi-stakeholder ecosystems and suggest that three important dimensions have to be considered in evaluation of Open Science ecosystems: framework conditions, system conditions and outcomes. The proposed model was applied in qualitative analysis of thirty-three Open Science case studies. Based on the results of evaluation, it can be concluded that Open Science landscape is highly heterogenous, fragmented and not fully coordinated. The fragmentation appeared in all dimensions of evaluation. The outcomes of the research provide a first exploratory step in proposing innovative measures to determine the elements of co-creation practices within Open Science context.