“Now digital technology and tools offer the chance for a new transformation: improving research and innovation and making them more relevant for citizens and society. We are moving towards open, digital science – a trend that is gradual but unstoppable. That trend, and the desire to embrace it, comes, not from politicians, but from the scientific and academic communities themselves. And I am determined to support it.” – Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda
The internet is the single most powerful force of change in the world of knowledge that we have seen in at least the past 600 years. How will this change the way we do science and how science relates to all other aspects of life?
In July 2014 the European Commission launched a public consultation on ‘Science 2.0’, in order to gauge the trend towards a more open, data-driven and people-focused way of doing research and innovation. “Researchers are using digital tools to get thousands of people participating in research, for example by asking them to report if they catch flu in order to monitor outbreaks and predict possible epidemics. Scientists are being more open too: sharing their findings online at an early stage, comparing and debating their work to make it better. Increasingly, scientific publications are available online for free. By some estimates, 90 percent of all available data in the world has been generated in the past two years, and scientific data output is growing at a rate of 30 percent per year.”
As digital science is gaining momentum, EISMD and its partners are leading discussions and innovative projects to assess the challenges and opportunities of Open Science. We believe that Open Science can improve interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration and change the way knowledge and information is created, disseminated and used across the world.