The French Open Science Strategy (SSO) 2026–2033 aims to strengthen the transformations initiated with the two previous national plans. Covering eight years, it is structured around ambitions, challenges, strategic objectives, and four-year action plans. The Strategy seeks to achieve: enhanced research visibility and impact, increased academic sovereignty, more cumulative, collaborative, reproducible, responsible, and sustainable research, and research that fosters innovation and extends beyond academia. The SSO identifies several challenges: heterogeneity of practices across disciplines, resistance to data sharing, fragility of research infrastructures, quality concerns in scholarly publishing, limited recognition of research software, and insufficient communication of clinical trial results. The Strategy highlights key levers to address these challenges, including research evaluation and international coordination. Artificial intelligence (AI) presents both opportunities and issues to address. The SSO aims to develop open science while respecting research security, guided by the principle: "as open as possible, as closed as necessary." The four-year action plans are aligned with eight strategic objectives. Four objectives focus on practices, governance, tools, services, infrastructures, and France’s positioning in the European and international landscape. The remaining four objectives address publications, data, software, and clinical trial results. The 2026–2029 action plan breaks down these objectives into 30 actions and 75 measures. It includes new project, such as the creation of a national forge for research software, and it strengthens flagship initiatives like HAL, Recherche Data Gouv, and Software Heritage. The SSO is complemented by an assessment of France’s national open science policy. While significant progress has been made, substantial work remains. The Strategy outlines an ambitious path for the next eight years—one that envisions a more transparent, collaborative, and sovereign French research system, capable of addressing the research challenges of the 21st century.
