Open Science is a new and rapidly growing phenomenon in the research world—with data, research results, and knowledge being gathered and shared at a continuously increasing speed. This trend forms the topic of the EuroTech Universities High Level Event in Brussels.
When Associate Professor Sune Lehmann Jørgensen from DTU Compute handed out 1,000 free smartphones to students, who, on their part, consented to him collecting data on their activities and interactions via the phones, he was joining the latest trend in the research world, known as Open Science.
The phenomenon covers researchers’ use of new technologies, partly for collection of large amounts of data and partly for sharing research results, ideas and knowledge through, e.g., web-based platforms.
Information technology enabling Open Science
New information technology has paved the way for Open Science, and as a derived effect it also facilitates new interdisciplinary collaboration. In Sune Lehmann Jørgensen’s project, entitled ‘Sensible DTU’, the collected data are shared with philosophers, economists, anthropologists, psychologists and public health researchers at the University of Copenhagen, together with computer experts and network researchers from DTU, who study all possible aspects of human and social behaviour. Read the article about Sensible DTU.
High Level Event on Open Science
Open Science forms the topic of the High Level Event taking place in Brussels on 21 September. The event is entitled ‘Opening up Science, Advancing Innovation’ and is organized by the European alliance of technical universities, EuroTech Universities (see more in fact box). One of the speakers at the event is none other than Sune Lehmann Jørgensen, who, in collaboration with other European colleagues, will offer examples of Open Science in practice.
Read more about the High Level Event here.
Wisdom of the crowd
“Technical universities’ historical closeness to industry makes it especially easy for them to follow Open Science principles. Sharing research more openly not only benefits science, it also allows for industry to harness the so-called wisdom of the crowd,” says Jan Mengelers, President of Eindhoven University of Technology and one of five distinguished speakers at this year’s High Level Event in Brussels.
Open Science has also caught the attention of the EU—most recently, the European Commission added ‘open research data’ as a standard for all research projects under the Horizon 2020 research programme.