On 13 and 14 March, more than 200 participants from 35 countries gathered in Berlin for the Open Science Conference to address the scientific and practical dimensions of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Since the FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) for research data and the corresponding research data infrastructures have recently gained importance, they constituted one of the focus topics at this year’s Open Science Conference.
The other topics under discussion were current developments in research data management, a critical assessment of Open Science, and concrete projects for implementing Open Science in the various scientific communities.
The following core issues permeated the different presentations and contributions:
- Open Science has arrived in the communities and is being taken up. Numerous projects and initiatives promote Open Science practices and offer support and trainings. The various scientific communities are motivated by a desire to overcome science-intrinsic obstacles, such as discipline-specific problems of reproducibility, by means of Open Science practices.
- Open Science must be better integrated into scientific training. Technical barriers are not seen as the main challenge for the implementation of the European Open Science Cloud. Rather, young researchers must learn how Open Science works and which concrete benefits they can derive from a change in cultur
- FAIR must be put into practice. Participants tried to define Open Data and FAIR Data as different, but overlapping concepts. They also discussed the concrete implementation of the FAIR principles in scientific practice, where “Interoperable” and “Reusable” present the biggest challenges.
Klaus Tochtermann, Chair of the Open Science Conference and director of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics summarised the findings: “Open Science practices have arrived in the communities because they have been shown to increase the quality of scientific findings.”
Look back with us to the Open Science Conference 2018:
Programme and slides
Speakers
Press photos
About the Open Science Conference:
The Open Science Conference is the 5th international conference of the Leibniz Research Alliance Science 2.0. The Open Science Conference continues and further develops the former Science 2.0 Conference. The conference addresses the Open Science movement and offers a unique platform for researchers and experts from libraries and science policy to discuss and share ideas and practical experiences. The International Open Science Conference is hosted by the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics and the Leibniz Research Alliance Science 2.0.