OpenAIRE Austrian National Workshop: “European Pathways to Open Science”

The OpenAIRE National Workshop for Austria took place during the International Open Access Week, on the 25^th of October. It was designed as an information sharing event for researchers who take part in FP7 and H2020 Projects, research administration services and other interested services. It was organized by OpenAire NOAD, Austria and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), which is the Austrian NCP for the European Commission and also one of the most important funders for science in Austria. The event was under the motto “European Pathways to Open Science” and was held at the Aula on the Campus of the University of Vienna. Over     100 participants were present and listened to the presentations and took part in lively discussions about the topic.

The keynote speaker was Katja Mayer (University of Vienna), a sociologist working mainly on Open Science and is an active member of Open Knowledge Austria and the OANA (Open Access Network Austria). Dr. Mayer entitled her keynote speech - “science as public good”. She spoke about the benefits for society as well as for researchers and science itself of sharing and collaboration; transparency and reproducibility, re-usability and new applications, societal participation and feedback loops. Dr. Mayer also addressed the conflicts of this openness depending on the different aspects and positions held across politics, economics and science. Sometimes, for instance, in politics there is a much stricter approach towards Open Access than might be possible in science (data protection etc.) or economics (patents etc.). It depends on the individual research and topic, how and to what extent, Open Science is useful and can be practised. The importance of functional infrastructures was pointed out, particularly those which could be managed and created on a partnership basis with libraries and IT Services (where existing infrastructures like repositories, cris systems, e-resources etc., are located) and the specific know-how has already been established.

The next speaker, Katharina Rohsmann from the FFG gave an update about Open Access and Open Data in Horizon 2020, regulations and exceptions and the use of Data Management Plans. To take a look at existing European e-infrastructures, Gerda McNeill as NOAD Austria (National Open Access Desk) introduced OpenAIRE and its services, especially for researchers and project coordinators, and presented Zenodo as data repository for science in Europe. The use of CC-licences, as an established standard for the usage of publications and data with legal certainty, was presented by Joachim Losehand from Creative Commons Austria. In the last presentation, held by Guido Blechl from the Open Access Office at the University of Vienna, informed the gathering on the current status of operations, as well as, future trends of Open Access to publications, were demonstrated and discussed. He introduced the audience to already existing deals with publishers, like Springer and spoke about future attempts to support Open Access Publishing.

The event “European Pathways to Open Science” was an important contribution to the international Open Access Week and a possibility to have a closer look to the topic “Open Science” in Austria. It was also another example of the very successful cooperation between OpenAIRE NOAD Austria (Library of the University of Vienna) and the FFG (Austrian NCP) and will be intensified in the future.

Link to presentation downloads:

https://www.ffg.at/europa/veranstaltungen/openscience_2016-10-25