Gap between policies and implementation in Open Science: a cross-sectional study in Cuban medical journals

Abstract

Open Science is an evolving paradigm that promotes transparency, collaboration and free access to the results of scientific research. Cuba, although it has not yet approved am implementation plan or public policy, has been making progress in implementing CA. The National Center of Medical Sciences Information assumes methodological attention and provides advice and follow-up to the development of all serial publications of the National Health System, laying the foundations for the assumption of the Priority Lines of Action corresponding to the period 2024-2028. The objective of this research is to characterize the current state of collection of Cuban medical journals published under the Ecimed publishing house, in relation to the adoption of CA practices. An observational, cross-sectional, and analytical study was carried out, and descriptive, inferential, and exploratory procedures were integrated, which allowed quantifying the frequency of adoption, examining its associations with some editorial characteristics, and identifying patterns of common behavior among journals. The gap found is not an various disciplines an regions, which is confirmed by empirical data from multiple countries. The path to CA in Cuban medical journal requires not only political will and formal declarations, but a sustained commitment to verification, training, and the design of effective incentives that make research and scientific publication more sustainable, accessible, transparent, reproducible, and collaborative.