ERA Group adopts Opinion on Open Science and Open Innovation in times of pandemic

Against the background of the current COVID-19 crisis, the ERAC Standing Working Group on Open Science and Innovation (ERAC SWG OSI) has adopted an "Opinion on Open Science and Open Innovation in times of pandemic". The Working Group considers that the current COVID-19 crisis works as a catalyst for Open Science and Open Innovation, providing scientists and policy makers with many opportunities, but also significant new challenges. Challenges include the need to ensure the reliability and the immediate accessibility of research outputs, including FAIR data, while the traditional peer reviewing process shows its limitations, the authors say.

Hence, the Working Group recommends that open access to publications resulting from publicly funded research activities should be generalised in all disciplines. Proper data standards should be agreed early on, taking into account the disciplinary specificities, while interoperable and federated ecosystems of FAIR data have to be implemented, as well as distributed analytics and machine learning. Furthermore the group recommends that research assessment and research integrity policies take the requirements connected to Open Science and Open Innovation more into account, in order to foster researchers’ engagement in these areas, as well as the trustworthiness of scientific knowledge.

The Opinion can be downloaded here: Opinion on Open Science and Open Innovation in times of pandemic

Source: https://era.gv.at/

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