“Where can we expect roadblocks and pitfalls on the road to a radically open science?”

Science is beautiful, but science can be done better. Most research is funded by money from the public, but the research results are often hidden behind the paywalls of journals and not open for all to read and replicate. On February 6, the Open Science Community Utrecht hosted the first Utrecht Open Science Symposium at the Faculty of Science. Members of the Faculty of Science, including Utrecht Young Academy members Erik van Sebille and Sanli Faez, discussed several aspects of Open Science.

The Open Science Community aims at making scientific research openly available to people within and outside of academia, and to make science more accessible, reproducible and transparent. Open science practices include pre-registration, replication research, sharing data and research tools, open peer-review, publishing open access, and open science evaluation and policies.

In his keynote lecture, Erik van Sebille sketched the landscape of open science, to better map the road ahead towards radically open science. 

To stay relevant, we need to change every aspect of our research: planning our research through co-creation with the broader society; conducting our research in a fully transparent, inclusive and collaborative way; openly communicating our research to peers and the broader public; and getting recognised and rewarded in an unbiased way.

Sanli Faez, also representing the Utrecht Young Academy at the Open Science Platform presented a few examples of successful open hardware projects that have already created a large impact. He shared seven suggestions with the audience on how to promote an open project:

• Understand community interactions
• Have an admirable grand vision
• Avoid the tyranny of structurelessness
• Choose an altruistic team
• You don’t have to start from scratch
• Get in touch with users at an early stage
• Choose a good motto

You can view his presentation here. 

In the upcoming months, the Open Science Community Utrecht organizes six more symposia at all faculties of Utrecht University. Each half day symposium starts off with a (free) lunch and a keynote lecture. During an informal and interactive afternoon, colleagues share their experience with particular aspects of Open Science. Take a look at the website to find the dates of the other symposia.