Towards Democratization of Science: Recent Advancements in Social Impact

In 1942 Robert K. Merton defined the four principles of the “ethos of science”, leading to the creation of possibilities to transform the relation between science and society. Resonating with the principles of communism and universalism, this work presents the Social Impact Open Repository (SIOR), which develops social indicators to measure social impact of science, from social sciences to chemistry, humanities or medicine. SIOR enables not only to know the social impact of our research, but also to discover and link the social impact of diverse researchers developing contributions in other scientific disciplines and contexts. Furthermore, as SIOR is the first open repository of social impact of science worldwide, gives the opportunity to society to have access to science in an open and more democratic way. The open access and transparency of SIOR is linked to the principle of disinterestedness, as the general benefit for society resulting from the access to the information is more important than the individual profit. The organized skepticism is in relation with the open peer review movement, exemplified in Wikipedia: developed by and for the people. SIOR is actually linked to Wikipedia, allowing to society to take part in the edition of contents related to social impact of science, promoting the socialization of scientific knowledge and increasing transparency. To sum up, promoting democratization of science.