Let’s take a quick look at the promises, how far have they come?
Making first prizes: check. Various initiatives have already been supported. Last year, all universities received resources to further strengthen their local digital competency centres. Data Supervisors and Research Software Engineers provide support to scientists with FAIR data and software from a single point of contact. Publishing platform Poplinova Universities of applied sciences have received input for further development, just like the platform Openjournals.nl, Which now hosts 32 open access diamond journals. Before the end of the year, we will also welcome 12 Open Science Communities to universities with funding to bring people and expertise around open science together at an institutional level.
Draw the next steps? Completely check!
Join the Openscience community: We’ve created a community engagement plan and are busy implementing it. On the one hand, program leaders from the Open Science NL team are actively reaching out to all kinds of communities out there. We are also creating teams to actively involve community members in our work: developing funding tools that advance open science in the Netherlands. We are still looking for experts for this purpose. They can still register themselves or others until January 11.
Share your expertise with Open Science on an advisory committee
Draw the next steps? Completely check! Our work program on how to spend available resources over the next two years was published on 6 December. There will be new calls for researchers to put open science into practice. Other calls enable institutions to strengthen infrastructure and capacity support for researchers. Open Science NL will also make targeted investments, such as a national data management training platform. We invest in sustainable open research programs and will help establish citizen science centres. There will also be scope for replication and research into open science. It is an ambitious programme.
When you look back at your first year, how do you look at it?
What was very striking was the enormous participation in open science in the Netherlands, from researchers and research supporters to administrators. It’s nice to work on a topic that many people attach importance to. Sometimes all this involvement was difficult, because from the moment Open Science NL officially appeared, people immediately wanted to know how it would work and how resources would be spent, while we still had to solve it ourselves. But when I explained it, I was always very understanding. There is also a lot of interest from abroad and people are watching with envy what will happen here. And yes, the translation of the word “directed body” is complicated. We have decided not to translate the word “guidance body”.
Open science leads to more transparency and thus more trust in science. And also to have a greater impact on science and society.
Finally, different political winds are blowing, what consequences do you see for open science?
I assume that we can continue on the path we have set under the new government. Open science leads to more transparency and thus more trust in science. And also to have a greater impact on science and society. This importance is seen by many, and therefore does not depend on specific political agendas. Abroad you also see open science being embraced by governments with very different political lines. I see all kinds of starting points among the parties that have recently won in our country. Take, for example, the great importance the National Security Council places on open and transparent government and digital security. Furthermore, increasing citizen participation in science: every political party should support this.
