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Discover how VLIZ embodies Open Science across departments. Learn about our focus on transparency, collaboration, and accessibility in research and data management. |
... an attitude across departments |
At VLIZ we like to say that «Open Science» is not a team or a department, but an attitude. A way of thinking about how we are and should be working. Actively contemplating how we can improve the outreach and impact of what we do.
This page describes how that translates into focus points for our departments:
Open science, including open data, is essential for research. The big challenges we face today - such as climate change and biodiversity loss - require a collective effort from groups around the globe involved in data gathering, data processing, data analysis, data interpretation and science communication. Without open and transparent science behind all these efforts, international, cross-discipline and verifiable research would not be possible and the strong international research network would cease to exist.
Today, many publishers and funding bodies demand open science principles to apply, e.g., by requesting to adopt FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse), principles to data and scripts used in publications. What we see from this development is that through open science, research output is not hampered but instead becomes much more impactful and applicable. This is a development that we strongly welcome in the research department and that remains essential for our pathway towards the climate biodiversity nexus.
For the data center a focus on "open science" is a natural one to take. Our supporting role "to manage, cleanup, standardize and share data" within the organisation has lead to a built up expertise in its own right which logically extends towards stewardship, guidance and the introduction of new and better techniques in the organization.
The sheer growth of data volumes and the increasing demands on their prompt (and qualitative) availability is further pushing us towards automation and standardisation. This matches totally with the focus on «interoperability» coming from the movement towards FAIR and linked-open-data.
Engaging in a fruitful collaboration between data science and data engineering is a growing part of that.
Open Access is a crucial enabler of Open Science. It removes barriers to accessing research and aligns with the core principles of open science: transparency, collaboration, and accessibility.
With the VLIZ open access budget the library actively promotes open science and assists researchers in publishing their work in open access. The library also plays an advisory role in guiding researchers on open access publishing, ensuring the visibility and impact of their publications and as such contributing to the growth of open science.
Open access repositories serve as a key tool for implementing open access principles in the dissemination of research. With the management of the Open Marine Archive the library promotes knowledge dissemination to the global research community and society at large.
VLIZ supports the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), that advocates for changes in the way research outputs are assessed and evaluated and encourages a more holistic and fair approach to assessing research outputs.
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The essence of 'Open Science' is that the science enterprise and its output are not confined to the research community but shared widely and in an interactive way wherever possible. Besides focusing on opening up to professional users of data and information products, there is an important role for 'public engagement' in all its forms. For more than 20 years, VLIZ-WCOMM (division Science Communication) has focused nationally and internationally on actively involving the wider public in the science enterprise, both from an outreach point of view and by actively involving citizens in the conduct of science ('citizen science').
Citizen science is one of the actions in the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science{:target=”_blank”} (“Member states are encouraged to enhance the inclusion of citizen and participatory science as integral parts of open science policies and practises at the national, institutional and funder levels”). It is also one of the eight ambitions of the EU’s Open Science Policy{:target=”_blank”}. It states that the general public should be able to make significant contributions and be recognised as valid European science knowledge producers. This voluntary participation of non-professional scientists in research and innovation takes place at different stages of the process and at different levels of engagement, from shaping research agendas and policies, to gathering, processing and analysing data, and assessing the outcomes of research. Active engagement with citizens and society has the potential to improve research and its outcomes and reinforce societal trust in science. VLIZ-WCOMM is a leader in marine and coastal citizen science in Belgium and contributes to a strengthening of citizen science in the ocean realm via several European projects.
Citizen science is one of the 8 ambitions{:target="_blank"} of the EU's open science policy. It is defined as the "voluntary participation of non-professional scientists in research and innovation". Everyday citizens can make significant contributions to research and is thus recognised as valid knowledge producers. Citizen science{:target="_blank"} is part of the EU policy and an integral part of the EU's Open Science policy priority and the European Research Area.