Open science in Pakistan: insights into researchers’ awareness, perceptions, practices and challenges

Open science is an evolving movement that seeks to make scientific knowledge, methodologies, data, and software freely accessible to encourage collaboration and innovation across all disciplines and boundaries. This study examines Pakistani researchers’ awareness, perceptions, practices, and challenges concerning open science. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed, beginning with a survey of researchers from 12 universities in Islamabad, followed by in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 16 participants selected from the same survey sample. The findings depict a complex scenario of open science in Pakistan, marked by both optimism and significant challenges. The study found critical gaps in awareness of broader dimensions of open science, including UNESCO recommendations, Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reproducible (FAIR) and CARE principles, citizen science, open evaluation, and open infrastructures. Despite these knowledge gaps, the researchers generally expressed positive perceptions towards open science, particularly regarding its potential to improve access to knowledge, collaboration, transparency, and research impact. In terms of practices, the use of open educational resources and sharing open methodologies were relatively common, whereas engagement with more advanced open science practices remained limited. Multiple challenges constrained the adoption of open science, including data-related issues, financial and infrastructural limitations, limited awareness of open science, insufficient institutional and governmental support for training and formal policies, and ethical and social concerns. The study points out that although Pakistani researchers aspire to greater openness, unique infrastructural, cultural, and policy constraints require a locally rooted, context-sensitive open science framework. This study provides baseline empirical evidence on open science in Pakistan.