Open Science in Astrophysics: Citation Benefits of Open Code, Open Data, and Open Access

We analyze the relationship between open-accessibility in data, code, and paper text in astrophysics using a sample of 53,194 peer reviewed papers published between January 2021 and April 2025, drawn from NASA's Astrophysics Data System (ADS).

We measure eleven quantities: open accessibility of text, open-code status, open-data status, number of grants received, code size, programming language, data repository size, citation count, number of authors, paper length, and publication date.

We break down citation advantages based on six astrophysical sub-fields: Solar System, Planet, Stellar, ISM, High Energy, and Galaxies+Cosmology, determined by keywords.

This is accomplished by tuning a multivariate least-squares regression model with alongside partial correlations and non-parametric tests to isolate the contribution of each facet of openness.

After controlling for the aforementioned quantities, we find significant citation advantages associated with all three forms of openness: open data (+32%, p < 10^-24), open access (+26%, p < 10^-67), and open code (+16%, p = 0.003).

The open-data citation advantage is present in all six sub-fields, and especially in Galaxies+Cosmology and ISM, which have the strongest cultures of sharing simulation outputs and observational data products.

Open-code and open-data sharing rates are highest in Galaxies+Cosmology and HEA (~0.9% and ~2.9%), reflecting their more developed community data infrastructure, and lowest in Solar System and ISM, where data is distributed on platforms not taken into account by this study.

Our findings support the long held notion that public access comes with concrete personal incentives for authors in terms of citations.