Open Science Austria Info Day

On 15 January 2024, the Open Science Austria Info Day took place at the University of Graz in the historic reading room of the University Library. The event was attended by around 70 people, mainly research support staff and a few researchers. The audience included representatives from all universities in Graz as well as guests from the University of Vienna and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences. Lola Karner, organiser of the event and spokesperson for the OSA, opened the event with a brief overview of the programme, which was divided into three parts with a keynote speech, field reports from researchers and a panel discussion. Vice-Rector Joachim Reidl welcomed the attendees and emphasised the importance of Open Science for science in general and for the University of Graz in particular in his introductory speech. Vice Rector Caroline Schober from the Medical University of Graz and Chair of the OSA Steering Board moderated the event.

She also presented the keynote speech entitled "What is Open Science? Benefits, opportunities, risks" and gave a comprehensive overview of the concept of Open Science. For her, Open Science means opening up the entire scientific process and a highly collaborative approach to research. This includes the generation, analysis and interpretation of data and results, the reuse and dissemination of research methods and data, the accessibility of publications, findings and software, and the sharing of knowledge and results with scientists from different disciplines, companies, authorities, stakeholders and citizens. The goals of open science are to accelerate scientific progress, improve the quality and transparency of research, promote collaboration between researchers and generally make the results of scientific research more accessible and quicker to implement. She clearly emphasised that Open Science encompasses a variety of practices and procedures within the scientific process, including Open Access, Open Data, Open Methodology, Open Peer Review, Open Education, Open Source, Open Government Data, Open Standards, Open Innovation and Citizen Science. She also emphasised that universities, as the primary institutions for basic research in this context, must reconcile the challenges and opportunities of open science with the diverse requirements of universities. She emphasised the advantages of open science in terms of transparency, efficiency, innovation and the involvement of the public. However, she also pointed out the dangers, such as increased resource requirements, data protection and security concerns, inadequate quality controls and unfortunately still far too little recognition for those involved. Schober emphasised that careful consideration of these aspects is essential for the successful implementation and further development of Open Science, but that its continuous implementation at universities is unavoidable.

The second part of the event was organised by three young researchers from Graz, who presented their research and their experiences with Open Science in their disciplines. Himar Brohmer, a postdoc at the Centre for Society, Knowledge and Communication at the University of Graz, began by talking about the development of open science in psychology, presenting preregistration (publication of methods, questions and objectives of a study from the outset) as a desirable open science practice in his research discipline. Franz Zotter Assistant Professor at the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz presented his research in the field of spatial audio technology. He gave an overview of his own approach to open science, which includes open access publications, the use of open peer review, the development of open source software and the use of open discipline-specific data formats in the publication of open data. Nick Scholand, postdoc at the Institute of Biomedical Imaging at Graz University of Technology, presented the open science endeavours of his research institution, where great importance is attached to the reproducibility of results and publications and where there is an extensive training programme on this topic. These three presentations, taken directly from active day-to-day research, were a perfect complement to the keynote speech, which had presented the topic from a theoretical perspective.

In particular, she emphasised the many legal aspects involved and explicitly pointed out the responsibility of university rectorates to support and promote efforts towards open science. Marton Villanyi, Head of the FH JOANNEUM library, brought his special perspective of universities of applied sciences into the discussion and generally regretted that, in his experience, the FAIR Data slogan "as open as possible, as closed as necessary" is still very often thought of in the opposite direction: "as closed as possible, as open as necessary".