Sorbonne University unsubscribes from the Web of Science
Sorbonne University has been deeply committed to the promotion and the development of open science for many years. According to its commitment to open research information, it has decided to discontinue its subscription to the Web of Science publication database and Clarivate bibliometric tools in 2024. By resolutely abandoning the use of proprietary bibliometric products, it is opening the way for open, free and participative tools.
Sorbonne University's open science policy is reflected in its firm stance in negotiations with commercial publishers, its strong support for the HAL open archive and its encouragement of open access to research data. As it is developing open access to publications and research results and enabling its academic community to regain control over the results of their own work and opening up science to society, promoting open research information about its publications and scientific output is a priority.
Sorbonne University has therefore decided to discontinue its subscription to the Web of Science database and Clarivate's bibliometric tools in 2024. Furthermore, Sorbonne University has decided to redirect its efforts towards the exploration of open, free and participative tools. This decision is in line with the University’s overall policy of openness, and it is now working to consolidate a sustainable, international alternative, in particular by using OpenAlex.
A partnership agreement will soon be signed between Sorbonne University and OpenAlex to formalize their mutual contributions and commitments to improve the quality of data relating to Sorbonne University and to support developments that will meet the needs of its community, and thus the international research community.
Sorbonne University's choices are in line with those of Leiden's CWTS (The Centre for Science and Technology Studies), which has announced that it is making the openness of research information a priority, and is currently working on a fully transparent and reproducible version of its rankings, based on open data from CrossRef and OpenAlex.