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Paper short abstract:

This paper presents an empirical study investigating barriers to knowledge sharing in research public-private partnerships in Life Sciences, which may prevent the implementation of Open Science practices, and contributes to the discussion on Open Science and Open Innovation convergence.

Paper long abstract:

Existing literature in the field of STS has found that collaboration between academia and industry has led to an increasing privatization of science and changed the way scientific knowledge is produced and shared. Public policies for science and innovation in many developed countries have actively promoted such collaboration in the form of public-private partnerships (PPPs) conducting Open Innovation (OI), which postulates a close integration of knowledge generated by academia and industry in order to develop and market new products and services. However, recent policies are also fostering Open Science (OS), in order to increase transparency, integrity, openness and inclusiveness in research. Both trends may seem contradictory, since academic scientists are pressed to commercialize their work and to collaborate with the industry while encouraged to publicly share their results, and there is an insufficient understanding on how OI affects scientific sharing. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study investigating formal and informal barriers to scientific knowledge sharing in such PPPs, and thus potentially preventing the implementation of OS practices. The study uses a sample of academic scientists involved in PPPs funded by the European Commission's Framework Program (FP) for Research and Development, in the field of Life Sciences. It explores the convergence of OS and OI paradigms and contributes to the discussion on (i) how OS is shaped and negotiated by multiple stakeholders, in particular in the context of large transnational research PPPs conducting OI, and (ii) OS implementation and governance in industry-academia collaborations.