28 July 2023
Over 100 open science practitioners and policy-makers gathered at CERN’s Globe of Science and Innovation from 10 to 14 July. Co-organised by CERN, Europe’s leading particle physics laboratory, and NASA, the USA’s largest scientific agency, it brought together experts to discuss and learn how scientific bodies can promote and accelerate the adoption of open science. Over 70 different institutes were represented from five different continents.
Open science is when institutes make their research freely available to other scientists and collaborators and, to some extent, the public. This encompasses sharing data from experiments, open-source hardware, open-source software and open infrastructure. It also involves a commitment to education and outreach. These should all be made available according to FAIR – findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable – practices, leading to ease of collaboration, reproducibility of scientific results and efficient advancement of science.
In the context of the global challenges we face, it has never been a more appropriate time to push for a way of doing science that is more open and collaborative. “In late 2022, a small group got together and started thinking: CERN and NASA both have open science policies. What can we do to push open science forward and make a difference?” explains Chelle Gentemann, leader of NASA’s Transform to Open Science mission and conference co-chair. While NASA and CERN are both large scientific organisations with already-developed open science policies, many attendees of the conference came from institutes that are just beginning to bring these values to the forefront of their organisations. However, the summit offered an opportunity for all to learn from each other and harmonise open science practices across borders.