Leaders Workshop
Every year Informatics Europe organises a special Workshop for Leaders of Informatics Research and Education, where deans and directors of Informatics universities, departments and research labs address specific challenges they encounter in their role. The workshop, held as part of the ECSS 2021 program on Monday, 25 October, was opened to all participants, and chaired by Harald Gall, University of Zurich and Manuel Carro, ETSIINF (UPM) and IMDEA Software Institute.
The theme of the 2021 Leaders' Workshop was:
"Open Science and its Impact on Research and Career Development"
Focus:
The growing relevance of Open Science and its many ramifications (open publication schemes, appearance of open research data, open source, reproducibility, public value, ...) poses a challenge, and may be a turning point, to current academic and research practices. Open Science proposals driven by researchers and academics are gathering considerable traction. At the same time, institutions at all levels (from single organizations to supra-national entities) are launching and actively supporting very ambitious plans to implement the very broad idea of Open Science, sometimes focusing on specific pillars.
This brings up a series of challenging questions, some of which directly impact the strategic decisions what department and research institution chairs have to face:
- What is behind Open Science? Why Open Science?
- How does Open Science impact existing standards for research and career evaluation? Are countries / institutions equally affected?
- How does Open Science impact dissemination of research results? What new dissemination mechanisms appear? Are existing dissemination paths rendered obsolete?
- How much should we commit to Open Science? What is the path forward?
- How to make sense of the separate, diverse proposals that are being made by different communities that are pushing Open Science-related proposals?
- What role can Informatics Europe play in the definition of Open Science policies that are satisfactory for the Computer Science domain?
The workshop was planned as a mix of talks, discussions, knowledge sharing, exchange in smaller groups, and a consolidation and presentation of the results to all participants, with ample time for interaction, discussion, and Q&A.
Due to the wide scope, the many facets, and the diverse approaches to Open Science, this workshop was only be able to touch some of the key points that are raised by Open Science. However, they were illustrative enough to provide workshop attendees with some initial knowledge that allows them to make informed strategic decisions and to better understand the current state and evolution of Open Science.
Check out the session rundown here.