AUTUMN 2020
We see a senescence of nature. Leaves are falling, animals go into hibernation. In contrast, we observed emerging Open Science at two remarkable meetings. The one was the Science│Business conference ‘Open’ in Brussels. The other was the launch of the new Dutch Code of Research Integrity Code at a meeting of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW) in Amsterdam. You will read here more about Open Science; Intelligent Open Science as we will call it to distinguish it from just simply opening up science.
Intelligent Open Science
The Science│Business conference ‘Open’ in Brussels was attended by top experts of industry and academia. In addition, highly qualified officers of the European Commission and Members of the European Parliament were present underpinning the importance of the topic Open Science. The common sense was that several hurdles have to be passed still, but no doubt about the ultimate goal of opening up science. The question, therefore, is not ‘should we open science’, but ‘how can we do it in an intelligent way’? How do we arrive at appropriate funding, which facilities do we need, and how do we involve all the people needed?
The meeting of the KNAW was quite different from the one in Brussels. We did not see top officers of the government, no members of the Dutch Parliament, and no top scientists expressing the urgency of valid science. Anyway, the new code clearly expresses the need of openness in science. We spent quite a lot of time discussing measures stimulating openness in science. Whereas the need of it was discussed extensively, nobody did make an explicit link with the European initiatives of Open Science. Strange. Here we will do.
Research integrity is all about making your research reproducible (see Newsletter Summer 2017). If we look at the cycle each study passes, we see opportunities of information exchange between experts, openness, in each stage. Of course, we need to organise the openness in an efficacious way to minimise the costs and to maximise the benefits in terms of valid science. We need to address topics like, ownership of the data, rewards of the staff involved, and so on. Actually, we are able to address all these topics sufficiently. Now, boards of research institutions and companies should be encouraged to turn hidden research into Intelligent Open Science. DRS is ready for it. And you?
General Data Protection Regulation
All subscribers received meanwhile an E-mail asking permission to store personal data and using it to send the Newsletter. We are digesting the (non-)responses still. You may, therefore, receive this Newsletter still although you did not provide the explicit permission.
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