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PLOS is a non-profit organization on a mission to drive open science forward with measurable, meaningful change in research publishing, policy, and practice.

Building on a strong legacy of pioneering innovation, PLOS continues to be a catalyst, reimagining models to meet open science principles, removing barriers and promoting inclusion in knowledge creation and sharing, and publishing research outputs that enable everyone to learn from, reuse and build upon scientific knowledge.

We believe in a better future where science is open to all, for all.

Open Science Practice

We work with diverse communities to promote the adoption of open science practices across disciplines, geographies, and career stages. To create new pathways to open science, we actively engage with stakeholders across the scholarly community with knowledge sharing, co-creation, and partnership.

Open science research

We conduct original research to provide a deeper understanding of open science practice, our broader scholarly publishing system, and the factors that shape them. Like the researchers who publish in our journals, we share what we learn so we can collectively build better solutions.

Open Science Indicators (OSI)

Open Science Indicators (OSIs) are tools developed by us in collaboration with DataSeer to measure open science behaviors such as preprint posting, data-sharing, and code-sharing in a standardized way.

OSIs are a first-of-its-kind tool for measuring open science practices in the published literature, at scale. Our work has influenced other members of the scholarly community who now use OSIs to understand trends in their institution; to explore markers of research integrity, and to benchmark new tools for monitoring open science.

Explore all the latest OSI data and findings

Open science policies

We’re committed to improving how research is discovered, assessed and recognized for its academic rigor, transparency, and utility to the broader scholarly community.

In addition to leading editorial policies supporting ethics and research integrity, our authors must adhere to the following policies which ensure research is accessible, verifiable, and reproducible:

  • Data Availability Policy
  • Materials, software, and code sharing
  • Open Code Policy

Learn more about our editorial policies

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