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).
Data, services and digital infrastructures: 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.
Websites, apps and databases
BRGM open science barometer 2023
Increased access to BRGM publications
Since 2022 BRGM has set up its open science barometer in accordance with the standards of the Ministry of Research and Higher Education. In 2023, 85% of the 227 scientific publications published in 2022 were available in open access. This result is again higher than in the previous five years, with an increase of more than 24 percentage points over the period. The rate of BRGM open science publications is now much higher than the French average, which stagnated at 65% over the 2021-2022 period. Its open-access rate is 12 points higher than the national rate in the category of Earth sciences, ecology, energy and applied biology (73%). The open-access rate is now increasing by only one to two percent per year, compared with the major shifts of certain journals to open access between 2017 and 2019.
However, significant differences can be seen in the open-access rates for older publications prior to 2019, for which the figures are less than 50%. Above all, this demonstrates a change in open-access publication policies, both on the part of publishers and in terms of authors' choices of journals.
How BRGM scientific publications are made available
Open access to scientific publications can take different forms: native open access publication by the publisher on a platform (non-subscription access) or the deposit of publications by the author in 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 publication may be available both on an open archive and on the publisher's platform. At BRGM, this is now the case for over 55% of its publications. This simultaneous availability, which is tending to become more common in most institutions, enables both the increased visibility and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) referencing of publications on Internet. More importantly, it also ensures access to French scientific publications over the long term. Only 12% of its 2022 publications were hosted exclusively on the publisher's platform. This sharp increase is due to publishers opening up their publications to the public, without this being reported elsewhere. This requires the author to intervene so that the publisher's file is also deposited on HAL, which is not systematic. The proportion of publications deposited exclusively in open archives (such as HAL-BRGM) is tending to decrease over time (19% in 2022), mainly reflecting changes in publishers' systematic open-access policies.
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 publications from 2021 were available on the platform in 2022. This rate has remained unchanged since 2019. BRGM has taken the initiative of centralising the systematic deposit of publications in HAL, while respecting the rights of the publishers. However, since the gradual shift by publishers to open-access is done without any notification on their part, there is a difference of 12% corresponding to open access being provided only on the publisher's site. A catch-up campaign will have to be carried out on HAL in addition to the suggestion service offered by the Centre for Direct Scientific Communication (CCSD - Le Centre pour la Communication de Science Directe). 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 deposits are also made on Pubmed Central.
All theses co-supervised by BRGM are available in open access
As part of BRGM's doctoral programme, almost thirty theses are defended each year. A procedure has been implemented for monitoring theses and systematically archiving them in HAL as soon as they are put on line on theses.fr.
Publications are now being systematically deposited on HAL, with an open-access rate of 100% on HAL and on theses.fr for theses defended in 2022. It should be noted 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 procedure for depositing theses.
More frequently accessible data sets, but with room for improvement in terms of access
In addition to open access to scientific publications, access to the data used in the research work is an important parameter in BRGM's open science policy for ensuring the credibility of the work and guaranteeing its reproducibility.
This is why a data availability statement is an important indicator for the source data of a scientific publication. This practice of declaring the availability of data is increasing, but is still not widespread enough.
The general preference is to simply mention data production, with a higher rate for 2022 publications (57%). And of those publications that mention data production, only 28% mention data sharing.
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.