Germany’s third Open Science Festival will take place at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) on September 17 and 18, 2024. The venue will be the Mainz School of Music, where participants can discover and experience the diversity and importance of Open Science.
What is Open Science? How do you practice and promote openness and a culture of sharing in research and scholarship? Which methods exist to achieve more openness in academic and scientific practice? The Open Science Festival (OSF) in Germany offers the opportunity to seek answers to these and other questions, to network, and to learn from each other. Following its premiere in Hanover in 2022 and the second OSF festival in Cologne, the strategic Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) alliance is bringing this year’s Open Science Festival to JGU’s campus in Mainz. Under the motto “Meet, Share, Inspire, Care,” attendees will have the possibility to network and discuss current topics. The festival is aimed at students, scientists and the staff of universities and research institutions, but newcomers, experts and all others are equally welcome. This year’s event is modeled on the Open Science Festival in the Netherlands.
“We’re really delighted that the Open Science Festival 2024 organized by the RMU alliance is taking place on Gutenberg Campus. Open Science in all its forms is a future topic of enormous significance, which affects us all and is hugely important to upcoming scientists, students and science supporters in general,” stresses Prof. Stefan Müller-Stach, JGU Vice President for Research and Early Career Researchers. “We expect interesting topics and discussions, and are eagerly looking forward to all interactions and exchanges.”
Beyond interaction and networking, the festival will also focus on intensifying the many and varied facets of Open Science topics – from their implementation in the academic environment to communicating science to the general public. It will do so by combining a wide variety of different and engaging formats. While the festival language will be English, some workshops will be held in German so that more members of the public can take part.
One of the highlights of the Open Science Festival will be the keynote address, which this year examines the topic of climate change in connection with Open Science practices. In addition, there will be a panel discussion on each of the two festival days. While the first will bring experts together under the slogan “Transparency & Intelligence? Advancing Artificial Intelligence with Open Science” to discuss the roles of transparency and intelligence in the ongoing development of artificial intelligence, the second panel discussion is entitled “Data and knowledge: Public goods or commercial assets?” and will examine the different ways in which data and knowledge should be regarded.
In addition, both days will feature introductory workshops as well as in-depth courses on a range of topics. Participants can take an intensive look at open source software, for example, or the connection between Open Science and Mastodon, research into the open cultural heritage by “citizen science,” the management of research data or aspects of communicating science. These in-depth workshops will offer opportunities to learn more about specific fields and gain valuable information for one’s own scientific work. Beyond that, the festival’s new speed networking event will be a chance to swiftly make valuable contacts and expand existing networks, while at the same time enabling newcomers to quickly integrate themselves into the Open Science community. All of this and more makes the Open Science Festival an important meeting place for scientists from different disciplines to jointly pave the way for an open and fair science culture.
The OSF’s wide-ranging program of events is the result of common work and planning involving members of all three Rhine-Main universities. In the words of project manager Marieke Koliopoulos (JGU): “As project manager of the third German Open Science Festival, I’m delighted to be part of the team creating a platform on which scientists from many different areas can meet to exchange ideas, share best practices, and work together to advance the principles of openness and transparency in science.”
Open Science Festival
September 17–18, 2024
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Registration: www.opensciencefestival.de
Contact: Marieke Koliopoulos
osf@uni-mainz.de
