Yesterday, the second national event of the project "GET TO KNOW - Support for introducing the principles of open science in Slovenia" was held, which brings together 20 Slovenian public research organizations and the Central Technical Library of the University of Ljubljana. National and foreign speakers discussed the implementation of open science in research organizations and legal issues related to open access.
Opening the event, keynote speakers touched on some of the key elements of the discussions that followed. dr. Rado Pišot, director of ZRS Koper, emphasized the importance of digitization of scientific research work, which enables greater efficiency and accessibility of scientific results. dr. Boštjan Golob, rector of the University of Nova Gorica and vice-president of the Rector's Conference of the Republic of Slovenia, highlighted the necessity of opening up science. "Openness is at the very core of science, and there is almost no alternative in science to accepting the FAIR principles." The latter enable fair, accessible, interoperable and reusable knowledge sharing. dr. Jerneja Jug Jerša, head of the Representation of the European Commission in Slovenia, highlighted the international importance of knowledge exchange. "Only in this way can scientific research activities reach their full potential." When opening data, it is necessary to maintain ethical principles and scientific integrity.
dr. Tomaž Boh from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation emphasized the role of open science in Slovenia as part of the wider European research area. "Open science is a relatively new phenomenon, so there are also fears." The latter must also be properly addressed. Mojca Štruc from the Ministry of Digital Transformation presented the OPSI portal, which, among other things, combines 5,258 open collections from the public sector, as an example of how Slovenia implements open access to public sector data in practice.
About the legal basis for opening data and copyright
M.Sc. Aleš Veršič, a certified data administrator, presented the broader legislative framework affecting the opening of data and emphasized the importance of European legislation in this area. "Last year, Slovenia reached 15th place according to the European Commission's questionnaire on readiness to open data, and according to the OECD indicator, it took 7th place. We can consider this a tremendous success." Veršič pointed out some of the obstacles that organizations face when opening data, such as lack of time, fear of user questions and the feeling that the data is too complicated or bad. “Data is a reusable raw material for new products. Just like water, sun and air in energy." That's why sharing and reusing them is even more important.
dr. Till Kreutzer from iRights.Law presented the legal aspects of open science with an emphasis on copyright management and research data licensing. "Copyright only protects works that are original, creative and human-made. And this regardless of how much knowledge and what skills were needed to create a work." Copyright therefore excludes facts, data and machine-generated products. "Research data is not protected, while works derived from it may be copyrighted," he explained. To eliminate copyright restrictions on access to research content, he suggests using open licenses such as Creative Commons (CC0), which allow free and wide reuse of content.
Examples of good practices from abroad
dr. Liz Guzman Ramirez from the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, said that all Dutch universities have developed strategies for open science and research data management. "Such practices improve data quality, accountability, reputation and time efficiency", whereby it is necessary to ensure a data management plan, compliance with the GDPR, use of secure storage solutions, legal acquisition of data and compliance with FAIR principles. Open science policy and research data management are necessary for success "infrastructure, good user experience for all stakeholders, active community and incentives." This is also demonstrated by the good practice example of the Technical University of Eindhoven.
dr. Liisa Lehtsal from the Research Data Alliance, emphasized the importance of the involvement of various stakeholders in the policy-making process of research institutions in the field of open science and research data management. Stakeholders represent a wide variety of groups, from researchers to librarians, computer scientists and data administrators. Examples of good practices across Europe show that "the development and implementation of research data management requires time and often a change of culture in the organization." Each organization needs a customized approach.
When data openness and security meet
The event concluded with a panel discussion where the four previous speakers joined forces to explore the complexities of balancing the openness of research data with security concerns. They looked for the boundaries between accessibility for all and elements that may pose security concerns at national and European level. They agreed that the constant determination of borders is a task of politics and thus a reflection of the political climate at a given moment. The panelists also touched on the impact of cybersecurity measures on research initiatives and considered how software management plans could help mitigate potential security risks.
Photo: Uroš Kunaver, CTK
