NUI Galway is hosting Ireland’s first Open Science Week to showcase the best in scientific research and education that is accessible to all without restrictions or paywalls.
Open Science is a global movement towards scientific research and educational practices that puts an emphasis on collaboration and transparency.
It aims to make the publications, data, research outputs and teaching and learning resources of scientific research and education publicly available as quickly as possible to encourage as many people as possible to participate in the building of knowledge.
The inaugural Open Science Week at NUIGÂ will bring together educators, researchers, policymakers, and the general public with events targeting several elements of Open Science, including Open Data, Open Access, Open Education and Citizen Science.
It’s estimated that €250 billion is spent each year in Europe on publicly funded scientific research, but much of that is locked away in expensive journals that make it harder to access, to use, and to peer review.
This event will try to answer questions around making sure that research is reproduceable, eliminating the pressure to publish that can can on occasion stain research with falsifications, and asking if there is a better model than peer-review.
Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, President of NUI Galway, commented that said that scientific scholarship plays a major role in our economy and is an important area to scrutinise for potential to improve.
“Investment in education and research which generates such knowledge is harvested by increased public access to and engagement with knowledge outputs: publications, data and a greater sense of relationship between the citizen and knowledge.”
Open Science Week will run from April 8 – 12, with events like a screening of the movie ‘Paywall: the Business of Scholarship’, questioning the benefits that come from academic publishers which rake in over €25 billion a year.
The ‘Wikipedia edit-a-thon on Women in Science‘ highlights how women in science are under-represented on Wikipedia, with just 18% of biographies for women, while Data Conversation – Talking Historical Data aims to bring together data science practitioners to discuss sharing of information.
For registration and full details on all the events taking place visit: www.nuigalway.ie/openscienceweek and follow #OpenSciGalway on Twitter.
