BRGM’s open science policy
BRGM, the French geological survey, is a leading national and European player in the field of science and information on ground and the subsurface and its resources. It plays an increasing role as a widely acknowledged centre for ground and subsurface data both for the French Government and for European infrastructures such as the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) and the European Geological Survey Alliance EuroGeoSurveys and international ones, in particular for OneGeology.
As the manager of a very large number of open-access databases, which are part of its public-policy support activities, it is committed to sharing the results of its research activities as much as possible.
Open science policy developed in 2022
BRGMs open science policy aims to standardise practices at the level of the institution and to accelerate the process in all the scientific fields covered by the French geological survey.
BRGM's open science policy is to open up data, source codes and knowledge generated with public funds as its general practice, while respecting confidentiality legislation and rules with respect to National Security, business secrecy and defending national sovereignty.
The foundations of BRGM’s open science policy
The open science policy is based on the FAIR principles and covers the entire data life cycle to ensure long-term dissemination of data and results. It is based on 4 guidelines:
Ensuring compliance with French open science and data policy and regulations
BRGM has played a pioneering role in the movement to open up data and ensure their interoperability in France for over 20 years. In accordance with French and European regulations, the institution guarantees that all publicly funded results, source codes and scientific research data, are made available, in the interests of transparency and in the hope of helping to develop direct or indirect economic activity. As an economic player, BRGM will also be able to participate, on its own behalf, in the development of digital services for which a fee will be charged and which will exploit free data and codes from a wide variety of sources.
Ensuring that the intellectual property of scientific results and data is respected
The aim of BRGM's data and source code policy is to make scientific results, source codes and data as accessible as possible in accordance with the provisions of open science, but also to protect them as much as necessary, when the rules governing intellectual property, confidentiality, sovereignty or economic stakes so dictate. BRGM undertakes to identify the legal framework for the data, source codes and scientific results it produces, or which are entrusted to it by partners or which it purchases. This implies taking the management of metadata, source codes (inter/external embargo, cause, duration) into account in the information system, to determine the appropriate user rights.
Managing scientific data throughout their life cycle by applying the FAIR principles
All the knowledge and data acquired or produced by BRGM for its research or consultancy activities must be managed according to the FAIR principles, using a process laid down in BRGM's quality management system. Consequently it must apply FAIR principles throughout the data cycle from the acquisition of raw field data or experimental and analytical data to transformed data and digital results. All the data produced must be systematically described and saved in BRGM's digital platforms to enable subsequent reuse. It should adopt industry standards, when possible, to manage scientific data and source codes and ensure their future interoperability and therefore re-usability.
Ensuring that data and results are maintained and disseminated in the long term
As a public research institution, BRGM is responsible for ensuring that data is maintained and not compromised in the long term. Beyond a regulatory objective, the challenge is to capitalise on the knowledge of the subsurface on a national scale, as part of an aggregative approach, to assist in the development of new uses while having extended series of data on the subsurface and the environment and make them available to all.
Geological map of France at 1/1000 000.
© BRGM
BRGM, a key player in the dissemination of geological and environmental data
BRGM makes its geological and environmental data available through various digital technologies. High value-added information: a valuable decision-making tool. This public institution is committed to open data and knowledge.
On its portal InfoTerre, BRGM provides free and open access to its geological reports and maps, data from its information banks (subsoil data bank, industrial sites, natural hazards, etc.) and a large quantity of other geoscientific data.
In particular, from the infoTerre portal, BRGM provides free downloads of:
- its vectorised and standardised geological maps on a scale of 1:50,000 and the geological map of metropolitan France on a scale of 1:1,000,000. These are decision-making support tools for public authorities, planners and consultancy firms in various fields such as regional planning, mineral resource prospecting, groundwater exploration and protection, pollution control, natural risk prevention and soil characterisation;
- the Subsoil Data Bank (BSS), which lists the material safety data sheets of more than 800,000 structures, associated with more than 2,000,000 pages of technical documents. This data bank contains raw geological and technical information relating to underground structures: location, purpose, geological description and technical borehole data.
On request from the public authorities, BRGM also coordinates and manages several dozen websites and databases in the fields of geology, natural hazards (Géorisques), water (ADES), mineral resources (Mineralinfo), geothermal energy (Géothermies), etc.
To ensure easy access to its data from any point in the country, BRGM also provides three mobile applications: i-InfoTerre (mobile version of the InfoTerre web portal), InfoNappe (on groundwater) and InfoGéol (on the geology of France).
Data interoperability: solid expert knowledge
BRGM, a major player in the collection, enhancement and provision of geo-referenced environmental and geoscience data, was one of the pioneers in thinking up and conceptualising the principle of information system interoperability. Through its involvement in establishing and implementing standards for processing and distributing geo-environmental information, it has accumulated expert knowledge that is regularly sought in research projects and partnerships in France and Europe.
BRGM is therefore closely involved in the construction of standards in the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) and the IUGS-CGI (Commission on Geoscience Information at the International Union of Geological Sciences). It is one of the main contributors to the establishment of the rules and standards of the European INSPIRE directive, which in the long term aims to put all European public environmental information online. It also plays an essential role in international initiatives (GEOSS, OneGeology).
Geoscientific and environmental data: a strategic challenge for BRGM
BRGM collects, hosts and disseminates geological and environmental data, which are also used as raw material for new science. It is one of the main national and European reference establishments with regard to the management of the geoscientific and environmental data cycle.
BRGM open science barometer 2024
Increased open access to BRGM publications
Since 2018, BRGM has run its open science barometer in accordance with the standards of the Ministry of Research and Higher Education.
2024 saw a slight increase of 2% in open-access papers from 2022 and 2023. But above all, this progression shows an increase of more than 39 points over 5 years. The BRGM open-access publication rate is now significantly higher than the average for France, which stagnated over the 2021-2022 period (65%). This 2022 open-access publication rate is 11 points higher than the national rate in the Earth sciences, ecology, energy and applied biology category (73%). The system appears to have levelled out over the last 3 years, with an increase in the open-access publication rate of between 1% and 2% per year.
However, significant differences can be seen in the open access rates for older papers before 2020, for which the rate is less than 50%. Above all, this demonstrates the trends in open access policies for papers, both on the part of publishers and in terms of authors' choices of journals.
Rate of open access to BRGM scientific papers with a Crossref Digital Object Identifier (DOI), published during the previous year, by year of observation
Trends in the rate of open access to BRGM scientific papers with a Crossref DOI, by year of observation
How BRGM scientific papers are made available
Open access to scientific papers can take different forms: native open access provided by the publisher on a platform (non-subscription access) or submission of papers by their author to an open archive, such as the national HAL platform, to which BRGM has been contributing since 2010 via its HAL-BRGM portal.
These two options are not mutually exclusive, since a paper may be available both in an open archive and on the publisher's platform. This is now the main open access mode. It now accounts for 60% of papers, but is down from last year (68%). Single submissions by authors to open archives are stagnating and now only account for 16%. It requires the author to ensure that the publisher's file is also submitted to HAL, which is not always done. There has also been marginal growth in the proportion of papers hosted exclusively on the publisher's platform (7% compared with 1% in 2023). Open access mode mainly reflects the trends in the policies of some publishers on always providing open access.
Breakdown of open-access BRGM scientific papers with a Crossref DOI by year of publication (observed in 2024)
Rate of open access by type of BRGM paper with a Crossref DOI for 2023 papers
HAL is BRGM's main open archive
To facilitate open access to its publications, BRGM has joined the national HAL platform via its HAL-BRGM portal. Seventy-three per cent of BRGM papers from 2023 were published on the platform in 2023. This rate has remained unchanged since 2019.
BRGM has taken the initiative of centralising the submission of papers always in HAL, while respecting the rights of the publishers. However, since publishers have gradually shifted to open access without providing any notification, there is a 7% discrepancy, corresponding to open access provided only on the publisher's website. There are also repositories in the French institutional archives of BRGM co-authors such as IFREMER (Archimer) and the five higher education establishments on the Bordeaux site (Oskar Bordeaux). Six percent of papers are also submitted on Pubmed Central.
Trends in the open access rate of BRGM scientific papers with a Crossref DOI hosted on open archives by year of observation
Trends in business models for papers published for open access by their publisher, by year of publication
This diagram shows the distribution of scientific papers published for open access by their publisher, according to the business model of the journal in which they are published. It identifies four types of business model: articles published in fully open-access journals that do not charge publication fees ("Diamond"), articles published in fully open-access journals that do charge publication fees ("Gold full APC"), articles published in hybrid journals (where only part of the content is available for open access and the other part can be opened through individually paid publication fees), and lastly all other cases.
Despite a general open science policy advocating for "Green" type open access, i.e. free public archiving after an embargo period, a significant and stable proportion of authors (of 39% of open publications) were still using the paid "Gold" model in 2023. Development of the "diamond" model is beginning, and it has doubled (13%) compared to 2022.
Rate of open access by language for BRGM papers with a Crossref DOI, 2023 papers
Papers released in 2023 included 192 in English, 165 of which were open-access and 27 closed (i.e. an open access rate of 86%), and 10 in French, 8 of which were open-access and 2 were closed (i.e. an open access rate of 80%). French-language papers are less open than those in English. The numbers of papers in Spanish, German and Portuguese are smaller and statistically less significant.
Access to theses always open in the HAL open archive
As part of BRGM's PhD programme, almost thirty theses are defended each year. A procedure has been set up for monitoring theses and always archiving them in HAL as soon as they are put online on theses.fr
Papers are now always submitted to HAL, with an open-access rate of 100% on HAL and on theses.fr for theses defended in 2023. Note that BRGM is not authorised to deposit theses in HAL, as this must be done by the Universities where the degree was awarded, through the national thesis submission system.
Rate of BRGM PhD theses opened for access by year of defence (observed in 2024)
Data sets that are accessible more frequently, but with room for improvement in terms of access
In addition to open access to scientific papers, access to the data used in research work is an important factor in BRGM's open science policy for ensuring the credibility of the work and permitting it to be reproduced.
This is why it is important to have an availability indicator for the source data of a scientific paper. This practice of declaring the availability of data is on the increase, but is still not widespread enough.
An internal procedure for structuring data sets and open archiving is now in operation and there is a growing tendency for authors to mention the production of data, which now stands at 60% and has risen steadily over the last 4 years.
Proportion of BRGM papers that mention having produced their own data, by year of publication
Proportion of BRGM papers that include a Data Availability Statement section, by year of publication
This diagram shows the proportion of papers which declare that they make data available (mentioning a Data Availability Statement), by year of publication. The presence of a Data Availability Statement in the body of the paper does not in itself mean that the authors of the paper actually share their data when asked to do so. This diagram shows the proportion of papers by year of publication for which a data-sharing mention has been detected, among the papers that mention data production.
There has been a significant increase in the number of papers stating that the data are available. In 2023, this will account for almost half of all papers (compared with 31-35% in the previous 2 years). This is probably due to the implementation of operational internal tools to host these data and make them available.
The French open science barometer adapted for public institutions
The open science barometer is a set of indicators put in place by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research in 2022 to determine the proportion of scientific publications with open access in France.
The aim is to measure and compare the development of open science practices in France, using reliable, open data based on a shared methodology.
Each institution has free access to the results of its own barometer, based on data from its scientific publications.
BRGM has been publishing the main results of its open science barometer since 2022.
Methodology
The open science barometer (BSO) studies the type of access (closed/open) to scientific publications (journal articles, conference proceedings, preprints, book chapters, other) with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and where at least one author has a French affiliation.
The BSO is based solely on open sources, in particular Unpaywall and HAL. If access is open, a distinction is made between three types of access, depending on whether the full text is accessed directly through the publisher, through an open archive, or both.
The BSO includes scientific publications published after 2012. It is updated at the end of each year.
The results of the BRGM open science barometer are directly based on those of the French open science barometer, applied to the list of scientific publications provided by BRGM.