As the principal locations of publicly funded science, universities remain the places where knowledge from the past is reassessed and new knowledge created and extended. In the open science era, their scientific output encompasses publications, data, software, educational resources, hardware and collaborative practices. The universities continue to create social potential through the coupling of knowledge creation with their educational role of helping to form citizens, through community involvement and innovation. 

The enthusiasm for this era of open science needs to maintain that rigour is the strength of science. Universities need to ensure that novel knowledge and its proofs are made widely available and formally tested through processes of sustained and organised scientific scrutiny of peers. Placing themselves as in the vanguard of the open science movement, the universities face the following challenges:

• Rising mistrust in science that undermines the pursuit of truth and acquisition of knowledge. 
• Explosion of scientific publications that do not necessarily add significant scientific value.
• Increasing attacks on the integrity of science and that of universities. 
• The circulation of publications in the core of the “global knowledge stream” currently benefits high income countries and disadvantages low-and-middle income countries.
• Present pricing structure of the dominant commercial publishing model hinders access to large parts of this knowledge stream in countries and universities in the global south, further fracturing the global scientific community. 
• Being perceived as an extension of a western dominated system that undervalues outputs, priorities and epistemologies from other practices and regions, particularly the global south. 
• The “liberal” university is threatened in many countries, and potentially at risk from technological companies that could absorb some utilitarian educational functions at lower cost and privatise aspects of knowledge creation, diminishing its social potential. 

There are four practical and crucial priorities for universities, addressing the challenges:

• Opening the workings of science to scrutiny, both to peers and to the public, as powerful means of ensuring rigour and honesty and therefore the integrity of science, its capacity for self-correction and its efficiency for users. 
• Open collaboration across the scientific community including the sharing of outputs in  interoperable formats to enhance value through collaboration and efficient use of resources. 
• Openness to society in which universities extend their public engagement in the joint creation of actionable knowledge including transdisciplinary approaches. 
• Building bridges to international societies as parts of an international scientific and scholarly community that is aware of regionally and culturally varied contributions to the global tapestry of human knowledge. 

The new era of Open Science must be a true internationality. A vital antidote to a current withdrawal into antagonistic cultural blocs that inhibit attempts to address global problems. Universities are thus recommended to endorse and promote these four major university-specific open science priorities by: 

1. Pressing for implementation of open processes designed to reinforce and enhance the integrity of science. In particular, it should advocate the importance of processes of scrutiny, reproduction and replication as essential to scientific self-correction and to combat fraud. 
2. Advocating greater collaboration within and between national science systems through national and regional sharing of data resources, equipment and archival infrastructures.
3. Embedding open science concepts and practices in education and training, particularly that of young researchers should be strongly promoted.
4. Enhancing openness to society  and engaging local and regional communities to broaden the take-up of scientific knowledge and to combat populist attacks on science.
5. Supporting transdisciplinary modes of engagement, whereby scientific disciplines work together with external stakeholders in the joint creation of actionable knowledge. 
6. Encouraging the international community of universities to work together to articulate a university voice. 
7. Articulating scientific understanding of contemporary issues. 

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The International Association of Universities (IAU) has presented a report titled “Open Science, Challenge for Universities” at the IAU 2204 International Conference in Tokyo, Japan.