The registration for our Open Science Retreat on November 14-15, 2023 is closed.
All selected applicants will be informed soon.

“The agility of commercial infrastructures versus the sluggishness of institutional infrastructures: How to reach fruitful and trustworthy collaboration?”

Data and technology sovereignty is a precious commodity in science. However, the development of institutional infrastructures comes at a high price in terms of time: To reach the broadest possible consensus lengthy coordination processes are necessary to develop and introduce such infrastructures. On the other hand, commercial providers such as Elsevier, OpenAI or Amazon Web Services can develop such services according to their strategies in a much shorter time which are readily used by scientists. However, restrictions on data and technological sovereignty seem to be accepted by the users.

“The good, patient science system and the agile but evil commercial providers?” No! We deliberately want to move away from black and white thinking and focus on how academia and commercial providers can cooperate successfully when it comes to the development and operation of infrastructures:

  • How could collaboration between commercial and institutional partners be designed to connect the best of both worlds?
  • What could the division of labour and roles look like?
  • How can Open Science, with Open Infrastructures/Interfaces and Open Source Software, help to resolve these tensions between agility and usability on the one hand, and sustainability and sovereignty on the other hand?

We are thrilled to invite you to an engaging and thought-provoking virtual event that aims to delve deep into the heart of this issue and to highlight the effects Open Science may have in this equation. 

The OSR will kick off with insightful keynote statements of distinguished experts from the institutional and commercial sector. The following interactive discussions shall focus on sharing experiences of best practices and lessons learnt, and on identifying ways to solve the addressed challenges. 


Day 1:
November 14, 2023

13.30 – 13.40 Welcome address (Klaus Tochtermann, ZBW)

13.40 – 14.20 Impulse statements

14.20 – 14.30 Questions from the participants to the speakers

14.30 – 14.40 Short Break

14.40 – 15.05 Exchange and discussion in break-out groups: Opinion and experiences of the participants on the contents from the impulse statements

15.05 – 15.25 In plenary: short statement from every break-out group (feeding the insights back into the panel)

15.25 – 15.30 Outlook day 2

Day 2:
November 15, 2023

13.30 – 13.40 Welcome & wrap up day 1 (Klaus Tochtermann, ZBW)

13.40 – 13.50 Introduction of focus of day 2

13.50 – 15.00 Exchange and discussion in break-out groups including a 10-min break

Questions for the discussion:

  • Do you know or are you involved in projects where such a cooperation is working well?
  • From the participants’ point of view, what can be done to find a sensible balance (i. e. sharing of work and clarification of rights issues) between institutional and commercial partners when it comes to the development and operation of infrastructures?
  • How should the science system and negotiation processes change? 

15.00 – 15.20 In plenary: short statement from every break-out group (feeding the insights back into the panel)

15.20 – 15.30 Farewell and outlook to upcoming Open Science Retreats

Deadline for application: 19 October 2023

We are looking forward to an exciting retreat – be part of it!


Our next topic is

OSR#6
“The agility of commercial infrastructures versus the sluggishness of institutional infrastructures: How to reach fruitful and trustworthy collaboration?”
14 & 15 November 2023, 13:30-15:30 CET

OSR#7
“Reproducible Research and Open Science”
Date: 10 & 11 September 2024

Are you interested in past retreats and their results? Check out the reviews here


ZBW Open Science Engagement

The ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (www.zbw.eu) presents its activities in Open Science: a triad of research, engagement and development for Open Science.

  • The ZBW does research in the area of Open Science, in particular in computer and information science, in media science and digital economics.
    It wants to strengthen the commercial independence of, and excellence in, the science system. The ZBW wants to enable easy and quick access to scientific findings, publications and data.
  • The ZBW is an active player in science policy, nationally and internationally, to implement Open Science.
  • At the same time, the ZBW actively builds this Open Science ideal by developing and integrating new technologies that enable access and remove barriers.