Open Science, Open Data, and Open Scholarship: European Policies to Make Science Fit for the Twenty-First Century

Open science will make science more efficient, reliable, and responsive to societal challenges. The European Commission has sought to advance open science policy from its inception in a holistic and integrated way, covering all aspects of the research cycle from scientific discovery and review to sharing knowledge, publishing, and outreach. We present the steps taken with a forward-looking perspective on the challenges laying ahead, in particular the necessary change of the rewards and incentives system for researchers (for which various actors are co-responsible and which goes beyond the mandate of the European Commission). Finally, we discuss the role of artificial intelligence (AI) within an open science perspective

Open Science principles for accelerating trait-based science across the Tree of Life.

Synthesizing trait observations and knowledge across the Tree of Life remains a grand challenge for biodiversity science. Species traits are widely used in ecological and evolutionary science, and new data and methods have proliferated rapidly. Yet accessing and integrating disparate data sources remains a considerable challenge, slowing progress toward a global synthesis to integrate trait data across organisms. Trait science needs a vision for achieving global integration across all organisms. Here, we outline how the adoption of key Open Science principles-open data, open source and open methods-is transforming trait science, increasing transparency, democratizing access and accelerating global synthesis. To enhance widespread adoption of these principles, we introduce the Open Traits Network (OTN), a global, decentralized community welcoming all researchers and institutions pursuing the collaborative goal of standardizing and integrating trait data across organisms. We demonstrate how adherence to Open Science principles is key to the OTN community and outline five activities that can accelerate the synthesis of trait data across the Tree of Life, thereby facilitating rapid advances to address scientific inquiries and environmental issues. Lessons learned along the path to a global synthesis of trait data will provide a framework for addressing similarly complex data science and informatics challenges

Open up : the mission statement of the Control of Impulsive Action (Ctrl-ImpAct) lab on Open Science

The present paper is the mission statement of the Control of Impulsive Action (Ctrl-ImpAct) Lab regarding Open Science. As early-career researchers (ECRs) in the lab, we first state our personal motivation to conduct research based on the principles of Open Science. We then describe how we incorporate four specific Open Science practices (i.e., Open Methodology, Open Data, Open Source, and Open Access) into our scientific workflow. In more detail, we explain how Open Science practices are embedded into the so-called 'co-pilot' system in our lab. The 'co-pilot' researcher is involved in all tasks of the 'pilot' researcher, that is designing a study, double-checking experimental and data analysis scripts, as well as writing the manuscript. The lab has set up this co-pilot system to increase transparency, reduce potential errors that could occur during the entire workflow, and to intensify collaborations between lab members. Finally, we discuss potential solutions for general problems that could arise when practicing Open Science

Open Data for Global Science

The global science system stands at a critical juncture. On the one hand, it is overwhelmed by a hidden avalanche of ephemeral bits that are central components of modern research and of the emerging ‘cyberinfrastructure’4 for e-Science.5 The rational management and exploitation of this cascade of digital assets offers boundless opportunities for research and applications. On the other hand, the ability to access and use this rising flood of data seems to lag behind, despite the rapidly growing capabilities of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to make much more effective use of those data. As long as the attention for data policies and data management by researchers, their organisations and their funders does not catch up with the rapidly changing research environment, the research policy and funding entities in many cases will perpetuate the systemic inefficiencies, and the resulting loss or underutilisation of valuable data resources derived from public investments. There is thus an urgent need for rationalised national strategies and more coherent international arrangements for sustainable access to public research data, both to data produced directly by government entities and to data generated in academic and not-for-profit institutions with public funding. In this chapter, we examine some of the implications of the ‘data driven’ research and possible ways to overcome existing barriers to accessibility of public research data. Our perspective is framed in the context of the predominantly publicly funded global science system. We begin by reviewing the growing role of digital data in research and outlining the roles of stakeholders in the research community in developing data access regimes. We then discuss the hidden costs of closed data systems, the benefits and limitations of openness as the default principle for data access, and the emerging open access models that are beginning to form digitally networked commons. We conclude by examining the rationale and requirements for developing overarching international principles from the top down, as well as flexible, common-use contractual templates from the bottom up, to establish data access regimes founded on a presumption of openness, with the goal of better capturing the benefits from the existing and future scientific data assets. The ‘Principles and Guidelines for Access to Research Data from Public Funding’ from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), reported on in another article by Pilat and Fukasaku,6 are the most important recent example of the high-level (inter)governmental approach. The common-use licenses promoted by the Science Commons are a leading example of flexible arrangements originating within the community. Finally, we should emphasise that we focus almost exclusively on the policy—the institutional, socioeconomic, and legal aspects of data access—rather than on the technical and management practicalities that are also important, but beyond the scope of this article