EARMA Conference Oslo

Contemporary art for research support activities

How art can be involved in research projects, especially in Open Science activities

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

The presentation explores the opportunities to involve art practices in research processes, especially when we deal with aspects related to Opens Science and Responsible Research & Innovation (RRI), mainly to public engagement. It Addresses both theoretical and practical questions for a research manager, showing different examples also directly manged by the speaker.

European Union Research and Innovation policy: Implementation of Technology Transfer network for research projects

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: 2. Theoretical

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Authors: Serena ManciniAffiliations: University of Padova - Department of Women’s and Children’s HealthPresenting author: Serena ManciniVia Giustiniani 2, 35128, Padua, Italye-mail: serena.mancini@unipd.itPreferred Presentation type: Oral Presentation or Poster presentationAbstractBackground: Most HEIs need to be part of networks to get their innovations and develop special research projects focused on technology transfer and to rapidly create new collaboration and synergies with SMEs. The creation of “joint labs” between university (HEIs) or public research bodies (PRIs) and industry (SMEs), in a specific area (e.g., biotechnology) is crucial to sustaining new high–tech industries.Although there exists a well-developed tradition of industrial network research there is a lack of individuals who are appropriately trained with high-level technical and academic skills, complemented with business-oriented professional skills and a creative, independent entrepreneurial spirit which could be crucial to implement an EU strategy on Biotech and Health fields. This is one of the Innovation policy priority areas for the EU as well as an area of research that is scoring high concerning R&D expenditures.Needs: However, the valorization of the research outputs in the Biotech and Health fields is very low and does not fully exploit its potential to support innovation levels within the EU and beyond.Further funding focused on technology transfer of academia into the commercial world are therefore crucially important. Universities teach basic sciences, such as genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, etc. with a rather narrow academic perspective and often without a sufficient reference to the possible commercialization of ideas and new technologies. According to COM(2017) 2476 final in comparison to the US and Japan, too few Ph.D. holders in the EU go on to work outside academia. Up to 75% of Ph.D. graduates remain in higher education, state research institutes, or public service. Therefore, relatively few highly qualified students currently consider the industry as a future employer or even consider setting up an independent spin-off/start-up company. HEIs need to promote this through greater focus on funding programs on the application of knowledge transfer and interaction with future employers and promote creative entrepreneurial thinking. This approach has been promoted since 2006 (COM(2006) 337) implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: fostering entrepreneurial mindsets through education and learning, requiring universities and technical institutes to integrate entrepreneurship as an important part of the curriculum, spread across different subjects, encourage students to take entrepreneurship courses and promote mobility between the university and the business world.Among the most recent documents, the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan identifies entrepreneurial education and training as one of the three areas, requiring immediate intervention. According to the Plan, entrepreneurship education should be accomplished through hands-on, real-life experiences, and research projects, as well as promoted beyond educational institutions to businesses and the wider community.Conclusions: Therefore, the relevance of the technology transfer network has been greatly increased due to interdisciplinary modern innovations, and cross-sectoral collaboration in research projects implementation. This allows to development perspective national technology transfer model based on the concept of the innovation ecosystem and open innovation. Being knowledge actors, HEIs, PRIs, and SMEs play a vital role in technology transfer. The results of this analysis address an empirical study to develop a systematic conceptual Model of Innovation network of technology transfer that will help academics, policymakers, government, and business owners with a more depth understanding of the practical mechanisms that support innovation policy strategy.Abstract topic: Technology transfer; Innovation; Networks; Biotech; Health

Open Data - How can I make it happen?

Putting Open Data into practice with your CRIS system

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: 1. Case Study

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

The past few years, driven by funder mandates, research data management (RDM) has taken increasingly center stage in the context of managing the research life cycle. There has been a rapid growth in the appetite for making research data publicly available. In response, the number of open data repositories has risen sharply, along with open data requirements attached to research funding. Many involved in the research ecosystem, from policy makers and funders to publishers and institutions, have adopted new research data guidelines and practices. While many welcome this greater transparency, for those tasked with managing and analyzing their institution’s research outputs and their impact, the shift to extend the research life cycle management to research data brings a unique set of challenges. In this presentation, the team of a leading university will share their experiences with advancing their RDM practices by leveraging their Current Research Information System (CRIS) and specialized RDM tools, and how this has helped them shaping their strategic thinking throughout the research lifecycle. 

Open Research Europe

An alternative publishing model in action

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: 3. Good Practice

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

In March 2021 the European Commission launched their new publishing platform, Open Research Europe in collaboration with F1000, in doing so, solidifying their commitment to making open science an achievable mandate for their Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries. This presentation will go through the publishing model of Open Research Europe highlighting some different aspects of the platform devised to ensure it is meeting the needs of researchers from all the subject areas it covers.

Open Research: From Thought to Deed

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: 1. Case Study

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Openness as a concept in scholarly communication is gaining increased traction with more and more universities and research institutes adopting the concept. But is it just a concept or even worst an aspiration?  This paper will discuss in
practical terms the step involved in implementing open research in a single
institution and in a network of 
universities aligning with national and European policies and
infrastructures. The challenges, cultural ethos and successes will be examined
with a view to highlighting what works and what does not work. Ultimately, we
will attempt to answer the question is Open practical?

Research Data Management: Some Challenges

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: 1. Case Study

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

There is a growing wish for science to become as open as possible, with the aim to increase the impact, reproducibility, interdisciplinarity, and efficiency of research. Two important elements in this respect are open research data and FAIR data management (Wilkinson et al., 2016), which are increasingly becoming priorities on the agenda of funding agencies and governments. Open research data refers to freely accessible information in the form of text, numbers, images, audio, etc., that has been used and/or produced in research endeavors; it includes the data underlying scientific publications, as well as their metadata (European Commission, 2019; Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2018; OECD, 2015; The Research Council of Norway, 2017; UNESCO, 2012). The FAIR principles stand for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (Wilkinson et al., 2016). In a nutshell, Findable refers to the presence of metadata and a unique and persistent identifier for a dataset; Accessible means that a dataset and the accompanying metadata are understandable to both humans and machines, and are deposited in a trustworthy repository; Interoperable refers e.g. to the use of accepted vocabularies for the data and metadata; and Reusable involves e.g. the use of standard licenses for a given dataset (LIBER, 2020). The main purpose of FAIR is to increase the quality of research data, and to facilitate their interpretation and potential re-use.Despite the increased attention on the matter, there are still challenges to make research data as open and as FAIR as possible. We present and discuss some of these challenges inspired by a survey among academic staff at Nord university. An example of such challenges is that researchers need to adhere to GDPR, which imposes several restrictions on the handling of personal data. In particular, researchers in the social sciences, who often work with data involving human participants, experience a tension between open research data and GDPR. In this respect, many issues arise. For instance, how to anonymize research data containing personal information while keeping most of their value for future re-use. Another example refers to the presence of various traditions and practices across research fields, and the need to operationalize the FAIR principles accordingly. For instance, building upon existing research data in the social sciences may be challenging not only because of the variety in types of data (e.g., qualitative interviews, observational data, and data from surveys), but also due to the plurality of theoretical perspectives and philosophical views, where knowledge is advanced not necessarily through a process of accumulation, but through the illumination of different aspects of a phenomenon. The topics of open research data and FAIR data management are complex, and discussing the challenges associated with them is important. Such a discussion can promote a reflection on how support services within research data management can assist researchers meet the increasing demands from funding agencies, governments, and publishers regarding open and FAIR research data.

Towards a European framework for Recognition and Rewards?

Recommendations from the Netherlands, Finland and Norway

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

In this session we will take stock of the diverse approaches, regarding the new trend of responsible assessment policies and initiatives towards assessing and recognizing a greater breadth of competencies in academic careers, - considering open science practices. Especially we will compare the three national recommendations from the Netherlands, Finland and Norway to identify common topics and differences, and furthermore; - given that open science is about to become the new norm, are we heading towards a modernised European framework for recognition and rewards?

VITO Researchers find supporting information without searching, thanks to Voogle.

Voogle is an internal research information system that combines internal data with external data.

Format: Oral 30 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

VOOGLE makes it possible to search and discover research support information (calls/projects/researchers/…) with one search in regardless of whether the data is managed within or outside our research organisation.

VOOGLE connects internal structured (e.g. Data bases) and unstructured (research) data (e.g. pdf, word, ...) with external (open/fair) data based upon unique (open) ID. A knowledge graph, inspired on the Eurocris model, but extended with other useful objects, such as funding calls / project documents / …, is the start of everything within Voogle.

Linking internal data with external data, brings challenges like where to store/update your data? Which unique IDs do we use to link data? Can we reduce the amount of data that we manage internally? (Some data is kept more up to data outside our organization then inside, think about address data from companies which could be retrieved from ROR.org). How to generate in-depth meta-data automatically, especially from legacy unstructured data?

In an attempt to meet these problems, our organisation switched to a Microsoft Teams environment, But we were able to convince our management to an Data Governance approach to feed, VOOGLE with good data.

In this presentation, we illustrate how to roll out such an approach, not with one big bang, but with a coalition of believers working out a good proof of concept, and then scaling it up with consistency. We will also look further and explain the next steps in Voolge, and how this will help us realising our dream: "VITO researchers find the right information without searching".

Open Acces Pilots - changing funders' OA policies and practice in Widening countries

Experiences from implementation of Open Access policies in Poland and Czech Republic with EEA and Norway Grants

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: 3. Good Practice

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Researchers alone cannot make Open Access happen, as institutional policies at funding agency level play an important role. In countries with low participation in Horizon, experience with H2020-OA conditions remains limited. Hence, implementation of OA policies by national research funders is an important prerequisite for Open Science in Europe. This session explores the progress made and challenges remaining in introducing Open Access, based on experiences from research programmes supported by EEA and Norway Grants.

Open Science - connecting the dots

Alliances and networks for Open Science

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Interactive Session

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Open Science stakeholders will in this panel discussion present the perspectives for Open Science. What are the internal institutional challenges? How will the changing environment for scientists and academic publishing, review, and recognition processes effect our work and our institutions? How can we contribute to this transition? And who are the new players and agendas in science?
The panel will consist of experts from research institutions, the academic community, and other key actors. The purpose is to provide an overview over the current state of Open Science, and reach out to and engage EARMA members in contributing to the further development of Open Science.

The role of open science

What are publishers doing to promote responsible research?

Format: Oral 60 Minutes

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

In May 2021, the UKRI published a report outlining the funders’ role in ensuring a responsible research culture and assessment practices – highlighting the importance of diversity, collaboration, and the need for change in research assessment. The European Commission identified open access as one of the five central themes of responsible research and innovation. But what about the role of the scholarly publisher? Scholarly publishers play a vital role in facilitating open access and open science policy and practice, but open science requires collaboration among all the stakeholders in the scholarly ecosystem.

This presentation will show practical ways in which collaboration between the key stakeholders in the scholarly research system can facilitate the shift to open science, and bring about real change in how we discover, value, and use research – to the benefit of our shared research system and society as a whole.

Adapting to the new policies – turning IBEC into a fully open institute

Format: Poster

Category: 3. Good Practice

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

Open science is a policy priority for the European Commission and the standard method of working under its research and innovation funding programmes.
As open science is one of the strategic areas of the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), the Strategic Initiatives unit at IBEC, in charge of the overall institutional positioning strategy of IBEC, has adapted its structure to foster our work on this field.

Automatic Thesis Agreement Generator Tool for Supporting Fresh Researchers

Format: Poster

Category: Practical Initiatives

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

As the operating environment of universities of applied sciences becomes increasingly complex, it is useful to adopt holistic approaches to students’ thesis work. As potential future researchers, their thesis work emerges as one of the focal points of many issues contributing to this added complexity. These issues include rapidly developing data protection regulations and methods, varied business cooperation, the open science paradigm shift, increasing awareness of ethical and IPR issues as well as the diversification of education due to multimodal learning environments and e-learning methodologies.To overcome these accumulating challenges, Turku University of Applied Sciences is in the process of adopting a new self-developed tool for all students and their thesis supervisors. The background juridical material for the tool has been created in the “Open RDI, learning, and the innovation ecosystem of Finnish UAS” project co-funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Thus far, the tool has piloted by a total of 25 thesis supervisors.

Data Management Plans from A to Z (and Ø)

Practical advice on starting and updating your project's DMP

Format: Poster

Category: Methodological Session

Topic: Open Science & Responsible Research & Innovation

If you know what a data management plan is, but not sure how to get started creating one or even what sections are needed, then come to this session. Several key elements are defined and explained, with references and tips to help guide even the newest manager to feel confident when approaching the first draft of a data management plan. Designed for those who need help getting started and progressing through a DMP.