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“Enabling open science practices in Helmholtz!” – Spotlight from the perspective of a Research Performing Organization

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“Enabling open science practices in Helmholtz!” – Spotlight from the perspective of a Research Performing Organization
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Production Year2022
Production PlaceKyiv, Ukraine

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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
I'm very happy to be here with you today to discuss how Open Science can be implemented as a research performing organization, namely the Helmholtz Association. And firstly, let me say many thanks to the organizers of the conference and especially to Natalia and Sabina and all the other organizers for making this conference happen in these trying times and despite all the difficulties.
You're communicating so wonderfully with us and promptly informing us about everything so thank you very much. To quote the president of the Helmholtz Association, science thrives on free discourse and peaceful coexistence across borders, cultures and governments.
This is the only way to solve the global challenges facing humanity. And in line with the alliance of science organizations in Germany, we are determined to continue to pursue our contacts and close cooperation with our Ukrainian partners at all levels. We are honored to be a part of this conference and share our ideas in today's presentation.
And hopefully we can find fields of collaboration and working together on open science and innovation in the future. Thank you for having us. In Helmholtz, we address major and pressing questions from science, industry and society. And to this end, we arrange our long term cutting edge research in six strategic areas that you can see depicted here in the slide.
We're looking for answers to the big questions of our time. For example, what resources will be used to generate energy in the future? How can we make mobility climate friendly or what therapies will help with previously incurable diseases? And Helmholtz potential here lies in the scientists. They work in the 18 research centers of the Helmholtz Association
and use their globally unique research infrastructures and benefit from modern research management, among which open science figures prominently. So let's take a closer look. As an overarching topic, open science calls for the unrestricted access to scientific publications
and cultural heritage and the opening up of the processes of scientific knowledge creation. And as shown in this UNESCO visualization, collaboration, innovation and openness thrive when combined and then unlock science's potential. So open science entails many advantages for researchers, society, the economy and politics,
such as greater visibility and applicability of research, as well as collaborative possibilities. So our activities are thus guided by the paradigm of consistently employing the opportunities offered by digitization for scientific communication and research. By breaking down barriers to the use of knowledge and information, new levels of collaboration and cooperation are made possible.
Simultaneously by expanding transparency and the possibilities for quality assurance, open science increases the performance of science and promotes innovations based on scientific findings. And when we speak of openness today, we mostly mean intelligent openness, that is, as open as possible and as closed as necessary.
So per discipline or per research field, sometimes different parameters might need to be considered. As Helmholtz Open Science Office, we are a service provider for the entire Helmholtz Association to support this cultural change from closed to open, and we do so since 2005 onwards.
We promote the dialogue and provide impulses in the association and offer training and support concerning all aspects on open science. We cooperate with the Helmholtz centers and working groups and joint task groups, and we deliver key contributions to digital transformation, as well as represent Helmholtz positions on open science in the national and international level, such as today in this wonderful conference.
As a cross-cutting topic in our organization, open science shares connections with manifold activities, with different infrastructures and initiatives within our centers and the association as a whole, as you can see here in this slide.
And we have identified these five focus topics that you can see on the right hand side for the upcoming year, and we'll focus our efforts on these. And in the following, I'll explain some more details on how we go about this. One very important development and also focus of the session today within open science also is open access.
As early as 1991, the pre-PRIM server archive was founded, and amidst the serial crisis in the 90s, the pressure was heightened for things to change in the academic publishing landscape. In the early 2000s, then several initiatives for open science were called to life, and we're still benefiting from their call to action,
especially in implementing the possibilities of digitization for communication and collaboration. For open access, one of our key endeavors is the promotion of the transformation from subscription-based publishing to open access publishing. And without wanting to dwell on the details of gold and green, we've heard about it already,
it is important to note that in Helmholtz, open access green and open access gold are implemented as equal strategies. And the open access quota of publications in Helmholtz has steadily risen since it was first measured, as can be seen here in this slide.
The goal quota for 2020 was already surpassed in the publication year of 2019, and currently the quota measures 76%. Further work is being undertaken currently to increase openness for publications in Helmholtz and ultimately open up all publications.
Open access to scientific publications, however, was not and is not enough to achieve genuine openness in research. So as part of this cultural change movement towards openness, more and more elements of the research cycle have been and are being opened up.
Research data and software are considered equally important research products. So let's turn to these now. Research data and its management are central topics for the Helmholtz Association with its complex research infrastructures, such as, for example, ships, accelerators, satellites, and other data-intensive research activities.
And many of these are also accessible for the research community outside of Helmholtz. To strengthen the role that open science plays in this context, we published a position paper making information resources more usable. This paper outlines with a particular focus on research data, how science can be opened up, reused, and thereby promote the quality, productivity, sustainability, and competitiveness of science.
And also further transparency and openness, of course. This also means enabling the publication of research data and developing research data policies accompanying this process.
Thereby, we also cooperate with the Helmholtz incubator platforms in supporting the centers. Open science calls for accessibility and reuse of scientific results. And in many research areas, this can only be ensured if the source code is also made openly accessible in addition to the corresponding research data and publication.
At the Helmholtz centers, various research software initiatives are currently being implemented, as you can see here in this slide. And for example, within the Helmholtz Open Science Forum on policies for research software, we developed the checklist that is linked here to support the Helmholtz centers in implementing policies for sustainable research software.
This checklist is aimed at decision makers and functions as a living document. The checklist supplements the model guideline on sustainable research software, and it provides further information and support on implementing openness at Helmholtz. As we constantly strive to employ digitization to make all components of the scientific process open, comprehensible, usable, reusable, and easily accessible,
these milestones give a good impression of what we have already achieved and where we are today. Starting in the early 2000s, we are currently implementing national and international open science and open research data infrastructures.
Supported by our open science networks, we work on the advancements of incentives, indicators, and KPIs in Helmholtz in order to make these more suitable for the different research fields in the association, as well as for acknowledging open science practices more. Our new task group on quality indicators for data and software products is leading this process.
In this very week, after intense discussions with all the relevant stakeholders in Helmholtz, we are very happy to announce that our General Assembly has adopted the new open science policy for Helmholtz. This policy stipulates that scholarly publications, research data, and research software are to be published openly,
and it marks an important point in achieving openness in our organization. The policy is organized into three sections. In section A, strategic positioning, we formulate a commitment to open science in accordance with the UNESCO recommendations on open science, and we express our path towards openness by design.
In section B, monitoring, we make a commitment to open science on the basis of three current focus areas, open access, open research data, and open research software, through specific and verifiable indicators. And in section 3, C, implementation and common requirements, in line with the funding policy of the European Commission,
open science practices are formulated for implementation purposes, and here we draw on licensing, fair principles, and metadata standards. So with this policy, open science becomes the standard of publication practice for us in Helmholtz, and that makes us very happy, of course. Keeping all of these aforementioned developments and aspects in mind, let me wrap up our mission for open science.
In order to achieve the implementation of open science practices, it is crucial that open science and digitization go hand in hand. Digitization affects both the technological level as well as processes and people. Therefore, adjustments to workflows, business processes, and also more fundamental change processes are required.
As we outlined today, open science focuses on precisely this cultural change in science and how we do research, how we come together in performing, assessing, and communicating about science. In open science, we use the potential of digitization to promote accessibility and reuse of research products
and make research more robust, trustworthy, and reproducible. For the ensuing discussion with you now, or at a later point if we run out of time, you brought the following question and were very much interested in your replies, ideas, and suggestions. How can we work together to further promote this open science culture?
With this little summary, it brings me to the end of my talk. We would be delighted if you were to stay in contact with us beyond this event. Feel free to contact us with questions or suggestions. You may also want to subscribe to our newsletter, which is published in German and English, or follow us on Twitter to be informed about news on open science.
Thank you very much for your attention, and again, thank you to the organizers for this wonderful conference and all your great work.