Open? The only way forward for science

Authors

  • Elena Giglia University of Turin

Abstract

This paper aims to set out the reasons underlying the need to foster as much as possible the sharing and re-use of research data as well as their FAIRness, taking into account the various interests at stake. COVID-19 showed that sharing is the only way to go and that to advance science we need data – and every bit of the research process -, not only the final synthesis of the research itself, i.e., the article on a scientific journal. Scientific journals are still at the core of research evaluation, which is being reformed to include any research output and to reward collaboration. To be openly shared, data needs to be FAIR, i.e., Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, in order to streamline the workflow, to enable reproducibility, and to booster research integrity. The paper presents the FAIR open data as one of the components of the wider Open Science ecosystem, which we shall discuss here not with the usual “connecting block” approach but with an ecological one, where the web of interactions within the ecosystem defines its elements rather than the opposite and where the focus of Open Science is on co-creating knowledge instead of only disseminating it. The data sharing fostered by the Open Science approach is certainly not indiscriminate, but rather follows the principle “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”. A balancing act is required that takes into account the conflicting interests at stake, such as the right to the protection of personal data, enshrined in Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

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Published

2023-09-20

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1 (2023): Special Issue on "Open Science and Data Protection"

Section

Contents

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