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
This barometer only takes into account scientific output in the form of publications in journals, books and proceedings referenced with a Crossref DOI (Digital Object Identifier). Expert-assessment reports and corresponding data made available on BRGM's InfoTerre portal are not included in these statistics.
This analysis covers the year of publication for the period from 2013 to 2024, with 2025 as the observation year. (Data updated on 2 Dec. 2025 with publications released between 2013 and 2024).
Continued open access to BRGM publications
There was a slight drop in 2025 (81% in 2025 compared with 84% in 2024), which should be interpreted as a plateau rather than an actual drop in the openness of publications. The Unpaywall data used by the open science barometer to detect open access underwent technical changes in 2025, leading to a uniform reduction in the indicator over all the years monitored since 2013.
The open-access rate for publications is still well above the French average for 2022-2025 (63%). This open-access rate is 18 points higher than the national rate in the category of Earth sciences, ecology, energy and applied biology.
Although publication open-access rates have stagnated since 2022, there has been a very positive change compared with the previous situation (with open-access rates of less than 50%). Above all, this demonstrates the changes in open-access publication policies, both on the part of publishers and in terms of authors' choices of journals.
Trends in the open-access rate for BRGM scientific publications with a Crossref DOI, by year of observation
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. Very marginally, some publications may be hosted exclusively on the publisher's platform (1% in 2024 compared with 3% in 2023).
Publication natively made open by the publisher is the main mode of achieving open access (65% in 2024) and continues to grow compared with previous years. Submissions by authors directly to open archives have fallen significantly to 15% (29% in 2023). This practice seems to be used less because it requires that the author deposit it on HAL, which is not done systematically.
Breakdown of BRGM scientific publications with a Crossref DOI, in open access by type of access and by year of publication (observed in 2025)
Rate of open access by type of BRGM publication, with a Crossref DOI, for publications in 2024
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-nine per cent of BRGM publications from 2024 were available on the platform in 2025.
BRGM has taken the initiative of centralising the systematic deposit of publications in HAL, while respecting the rights of publishers. However, since publishers are gradually opening up their sites without notifying us, there is a temporary delay of 5%, corresponding to an opening only on the publisher's site. 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). Four percent of deposits are also made on Pubmed Central.
Trends in the rate of BRGM scientific publications, with a Crossref DOI, hosted on an open archive, by year of observation
Evolution of economic models for articles published in open access by their publisher, by year of publication
This graph shows the distribution of scientific articles published in open access by their publisher, according to the economic model of the journal in which they are published. It distinguishes 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 charge publication fees ("Gold full APC"),
- articles published in hybrid journals (where only part of the content is open access and the other part is open through individually paid publication fees),
- and all other cases.
Despite a general open science policy advocating "Green" open access, i.e. free public archiving after the embargo period, in 2024 a significant proportion of authors were still using the "Gold" or "hybrid" paying model. The effect of the transforming agreements (mainly Elsevier) can also be seen in 2024, with a fall in Gold (-7%) in favour of Hybrid (+20%). The "diamond" model is still struggling to develop (8%).
Systematic inclusion of theses in the HAL open archive
As part of BRGM’s doctoral programme, almost thirty theses are defended each year. This rate dropped in 2024, which could be explained by a slowdown in the procedure for placing applications on-line on the these.fr platform.
The deposit on these.fr is managed by the University where the thesis is defended, with an optional deposit in HAL. It can also be carried out by the authors themselves. BRGM is not authorised to deposit theses in HAL.
Rate of BRGM doctoral theses published in open access by year of defence (observed in 2025)
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.
Proportion of BRGM publications that mention having produced their data, by year of publication
Proportion of BRGM publications that include a "Data Availability Statement" section, by year of publication
This graph shows the proportion of publications which declare that they make data available (mention of a Data Availability Statement identified), by year of publication. The presence of a Data Availability Statement in the body of the publication does not mean that the authors of the publication are actually sharing their data when requested to do so. This graph shows, by year of publication, the proportion of publications for which actual data sharing has been detected, among the publications that mention data production.
There has been a significant increase in the number of publications reporting that data has been made available. By 2024, this accounted for more than half of all publications. This is probably due to the implementation of operational internal tools to host this data and make it available.
The general preference is to simply mention data production, with a lower rate for publications in 2024 than in 2022 (-4%). And of those publications that mention data production, only 25% mention data sharing (up 4 points compared with 2023).
An internal procedure for structuring datasets and open archiving is now operational, and there is a growing practice among authors mentioning that they have deposited datasets on the centralised archiving platform, which now stands at 64%, a steady increase over the past 4 years.
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.