All Stakeholders Came Together at “Turkish Open Science Summit 2018”

Organized by Sabancı University, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), Izmir Institute of Technology, Hacettepe University and Anadolu University Libraries Consortium (ANKOS); Turkish Open Science Summit 2018 which would be an important milestone for long-standing works on Open Access and Open Scicence, was held on Monday, September 10, 2018 at Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum the Seed, Istanbul.

It was attended by 170  people from the administrators of EU, the Turkish Higher Education Council (YÖK), the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBİTAK), university rectors, high-level representatives of industrial organizations and NGOs such as European Univeristy Association (EUA) and European Universities Information Systems (EUNIS). 1.342 people also followed the conference via web.

The purpose of the Summit is to make a comprehensive review of the latest developments in open Science and open innovation, to discuss the implications on the Open Access Policy research funding and support practices in Turkey, and to help develop strategies in this direction.

Opening speeches were made by Sabancı University Vice Rector of Research and Development Professor Şirin Tekinay, Izmir Institute of Technology Head of Library Gültekin Gürdal, Advisor to the President of Council of Higher Education (CHE) Professor Sezer Şener Komsuoglu, TÜBİTAK President Professor Hasan Mandal, and Sabancı Holding CEO Mehmet Göçmen.

Meanwhile, we are talking about open innovation and the ecosystem. We must advance to the point of creating common new platforms and fields, and consolidating the national economy around these. How should we build the new ecosystem, what should the duties and responsibilities of stakeholders be, and how should we go about building a cloud Turkey? In this context, I believe the efforts to anchor ourselves to the EU are highly prudent and should be supported. I find it important that a shared structure and an academic world where data access is quicker and data use more appropriate are built, that data is used in business as well, and that companies enable sharing on data-based business models."

The summit continued with three sessions on “Open Science Policies, Infrastructure and Their Effect on Innovation in Europe", “The Place of Open Access and Open Data in Open Science” and “The Future of Research” to explore new ways for mass access to information and data, and increasing the scientific and technological cooperation among the public sector, universities and the industry.

The session “Open Science Policies, Infrastructure and Their Effect on Innovation in Europe " was moderated by Izmir Technology Institute Vice President Ahmet E. Eroğlu, and presenters were CERN Cooperation, Tools and Applications Group President Tim Smith on "Big Open Science in Practice", ATHENA research and Innovation Center / University of Athens Informatics and Telecommunication Department faculty member Natalia Manola on "European Open Science Cloud and OpenAIRE", Hacettepe University Information and Document Management Department Professor Yaşar Tonta on "The Foundations of Open Science and Information as a Common Resource" and CIO, Münster University Information Technologies Center Director Raimund Vogl on "A Multi-University Project to Build Sustainable Open Source-Based Research Data Infrastructure".

Presenters in the "Future of Research" session moderated by Sabancı University Vice President of Research and Development  Professor Şirin TEKİNAY were Advisor to CHE Chair / EUA Research and Innovation Committee Member Sezer Şener Komsuoglu on “European Universities Alliance (EUA) and Open Science”, Delft Technical University Data Management Coordinator Marta Teperek on “The Path to Re-Creatable Research: Data Management and Open Science", and Librarian Elli Papadopoulou on “The Role of the Research Data Alliance (RDA) and the Mission of the Early Career and Engagement Interest Group (ECEIG)”.

The third session, "The Place of Open Access and Open Data in Open Science", was moderated by Director of  TÜBİTAK National Academic Network and Information Center (ULAKBİM) Mehmet Mirat Satoglu and presenters were Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) Advisor İlkay Holt on “The Role of Open Archives in Open Science", Hacettepe University Information and Document Management Department Dr. Güleda Dogan on "The Management of Research Data and the Current Situation in Turkey”.

The summit concluded with a panel discussion on "Open Science and Innovation".  Participants were Izmir Institute of Technology Rector Prof. Dr. Mustafa Güden, Boğaziçi University Rector Prof. Dr. Mehmet Özkan, Sabancı University Vice Rector of Research and Development Prof. Dr. Şirin Tekinay, President of Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM) Chair İsmail Gülle, and Arçelik Vice President of Production and Technology Oğuzhan Öztürk.

For the first time all stakeholders came together at Turkish Open Science Summit 2018. Therefore it was very important event for Open Science and Open Innovation in Turkey. There were presentations about OpenAIRE and promotional documents related to OpenAIRE, Zenodo and Open Access were put into folders and distributed to all participants.

A day after Turkish Open Science Summit, on Tuesday, September 10, 2018 “Research Data Management and Open Science Workshop” was held at Bogazici University, Istanbul with nearly 200 participants.