Topics of the 2020 Symposium

This symposium brought together information and data scientists, laboratory research scientists, publishers, funders and other interested parties to review critically their needs and concerns and discuss how they see the future of of Open Science developing.

Open Science is aimed at improving the efficiency, quality and speed of scientific research through open and collaborative ways of sharing and communicating knowledge and data. Whether we are addressing specific global challenges such as medicines, sustainable energy generation and storage, food, better and cleaner water supplies, or more general ones such as global warming, we need to develop solutions at a faster pace than has been done up to now. To enable this, we need to build bridges and take down barriers.

Driving research collaborations effectively requires new and powerful infrastructures to not only be developed, but also to be accepted by the wider research community. This includes the development of standards for data reporting, meta-data and exchange formats that allow easy indexing and findability, as well as the use and exchange of data and information (FAIR Data) particularly within an interdisciplinary environment. Technical innovations are, however, only part of the story; just as important are the changes in culture and incentives that will make depositing and sharing data the norm.