Open Science as a discourse topic between libraries, researchers and societies

Open Science is high on the European Union agenda as one of the prime instruments for a more transparent, effective and competitive research environment. Recently, key organizations, such as libraries and Universities associations, as well as Ministries of European countries have joined the stream of calls for a transition to a new scientific paradigm. LIBER, the leading network of European Research Libraries, is running its new strategy for the period 2018-2022 “Research Libraries Powering Sustainable Knowledge in the Digital Age”. The strategy has a strong interest in Open Science that was recently expressed through publishing the Open Science Roadmap. The Roadmap describes the context that has been shaped, the challenges that research libraries face and the pillars of Open Science activities. Together with other documents and activities, it aims to enable libraries to familiarize, embrace and facilitate Open Science. It also becomes clear that Open Science will be a key discourse topic between libraries, researchers and societies, and at the end of the dialogue, all should be persuaded about a cultural change that will help the European research landscape to progress.

Citizen Science as an act of innovation: librarians, scientists and citizens claiming knowledge structures

In its recommendations, the Open Science Policy Platform identified Citizen Science as one of the key streams to strengthen the dialogue between science and society. Citizen Science projects produce interesting results but, more than that, they challenge the shape of current scholarly processes. The OSPP has emphatically linked libraries with Citizen Science, as being “well placed” for a number of activities. The role they can have has been echoed in Open Science Roadmaps from LIBER and LERU. The potential that OSPP sees in libraries is a responsibility that libraries have to respond to. In this frame, the presentation will introduce the new working group of LIBER that is expected to start working after June 2019 and will give an outline of the key areas that research libraries will need to work. These areas will help us prepare a future where sustainable new structures of knowledge will help European citizens participate in scientific processes.

Panel Discussion