Science Library Pad

Departmental Open Science Plans for the Government of Canada

Government of Canada science departments are to create Open Science Plans, per the Chief Science Advisor's Roadmap for Open Science.

These plans are linked on the Government's science.gc.ca site:

Departmental Open Science Action Plans

2023 G7 Science Ministers’ Communiqué

G7 meeting in Japan.
G7 Science and Technology Ministers met in Sendai May 12-14, 2023.

Official website is

https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/others/2023/g7_2023_en.html

You can also find copies of the documents from the Toronto G7 Research Group

http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/science/

2023 Communiqué and Annexes

G7 Science and Technology Ministers' Communique（PDF format：524KB）

Annex 1: G7 Open Science (OS) Working Group（PDF format：337KB）

Annex 2: G7 Security and Integrity of the Global Research Ecosystem (SIGRE) Working Group（PDF format：424KB）

Annex 3: G7 Future of the Seas and Oceans Initiative (FSOI) Working Group（PDF format：392KB）

Annex 4: The Group of Senior Officials on Research Infrastructures (GSO)（PDF format：477KB）

G7 BEST PRACTICES FOR SECURE & OPEN RESEARCH (May 2023)（PDF format：280KB）

Previously:
June 14, 2022  2022 G7 Science Ministers’ Communiqué

Call for Proposals - Open Research Symposium: Building an open research community at McGill

As the title says.

Call for Proposals | Open Research Symposium: Building an open research community at McGill

Are you a McGill researcher, student, or staff member involved in a project to promote or incorporate open research practices? The Organizing Committee invites lightning talk proposals for the inaugural McGill Library open research symposium: The future is open: Building an open research community at McGill. Lightning talks consist of a 5-minute presentation highlighting open research, cutting-edge practice, or both. We are hoping to feature a range of presentations representing many disciplines.

The deadline for submissions is Friday, February 10, 2023, at midnight EST. To submit a proposal, [please contact Jessica Lange [email protected] with any questions].

The Symposium will take place

April 4, 2023, 1 to 4 PM
Eastern Rare Books and Special Collections, Colgate Room
4th floor, McLennan Library Building
3459 McTavish Street
Montreal

4th Annual Neuro Open Science in Action Symposium 2022

The 4th Annual Neuro Open Science in Action Symposium 2022 will be held on November 30.

It will be a hybrid event organized by the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute (TOSI) at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute).

This year’s symposium will focus on how academic institutions can pave the way for the future of open research.

Three virtual panel discussions will focus on inter-institutional coalitions, institute-wide efforts to promote Open Science, as well as initiatives and projects within Canadian institutions enabling researchers to learn about and practice Open Science. Expert panelists will showcase new ways of recognizing and enabling open research, the efforts of forward thinking institutions to promote Open Science through education and support, and how collective action is enabling a more open future.

The symposium will close with the presentation of the Neuro - Irv and Helga Cooper Foundation Open Science Prizes to the awardees, followed by an Open Science Networking event and Reception.

You can register through EventBrite.

Canada's 2022-2024 National Action Plan on Open Government

Canada's 2022-2024 National Action Plan on Open Government is available, the main landing page is

https://open.canada.ca/en/content/national-action-plan-open-government

and the plan itself is available as a PDF.

Open Science is in commitment 1.3.2:

1.3.2 Yearly reports on progress against existing metrics that measure how science-based departments and agencies implement open science, with a focus on open access metrics and diverse types of open access, to be released in the open

Government of Canada science departments have posted the Departmental Open Science Plans that will be the basis of the yearly reporting.

Previously:
January 10, 2019  Open Science in Canada's 2018-2020 Open Government Plan

Open Data Exchange 2013 - Twitter list

NOTE: This 2013 draft blog post is being published in 2022; it may be incomplete and the information is certainly out of date.

Open Data Exchange 2013 was a one-day conference in Montreal organised by Sauvé Scholar Naomi Kincler and developer Ted Strauss.

Twitter

• Michael Lenczner @mlenc - CEO, Ajah
• James McKinney @mckinneyjames -  Technical Lead, Open North@opennorth
• Michael Roberts @michaeloroberts - Acclar@acclar & IATI
• Pete Forde (session moderator) @peteforde - Hacker Tourist
• Sébastien Pierre - fondateur, FFunction@ffunction & Montréal Ouvert
• Guillaume Ducharme @GuillaumeAQESSS - gestionnaire dans le réseau de la santé et membre du collectif Démocratie Ouverte
• Josée Plamondon @joplam - co-conceptrice, ContratsNet@ContratsNet
• Jean-Noé Landry (l’animateur de discussion) - fondateur, Montréal Ouvert et Québec Ouvert @qcouvert
• Corey Chivers @CjBayesian - PhD candidate, Biology, McGill & Montreal R User Group
• Tracey Lauriault @TraceyLauriault - Open Data advocate & Postdoctoral Fellow, Geomatics and Cartographic Research Centre, Carleton University
• Petko Valtchev - Professor, Computer Science, UQAM
• Ted Strauss (moderator) @trudatted - Co-founder, Trudat
• Diane Mercier @carnetsDM - chargée de projet principale en données ouvertes@MTL_DO , Ville de Montréal
• Trina Chiasson @trinachi - InfoActive
• Christian Gendreau @christgendreau - Canadensys@Canadensys
• Trevor Bekolay @TrevorBekolay - Waterloo University
• Steve Reitano @Beautifuldata - Open Data Survey
• Anton Dubrau @ant6n - cat-bus.com
• Heri Rakotomalala @heri - MTL NewTech
• Julia Evans @b0rk - MTL all-girl hack night
• Roberto Rocha @robroc - Montreal Gazette
• Edward Ocampo-Gooding @edwardog - Open Data Ottawa

• Sauvé Scholars @SauveScholars

CSPC - Open Science and Research Security - June 21, 2022

Open Science and Research Security - CSPC (sciencepolicy.ca)

A consensus is emerging on the importance of making scientific information accessible to all in the digital age. Access to information is a right, however how to balance this with security research, is the topic of this panel.

June 21, 2022 at 1pm Eastern.

Dr. David Castle will moderate a panel featuring Dr. Martha Crago, Dr. Monica Granados, and Emmanuel Kamarianakis.

2022 G7 Science Ministers’ Communiqué

German G7 Meeting
Frankfurt am Main, 12-14 June 2022

G7 Science Ministers’ Communiqué - BMBF

Directly link to PDF: Microsoft Word - G7 Science Ministers Declaration_20220613 (bmbf.de)

Canada is represented by Dr. Mona Nemer, the government's Chief Science Advisor.

Selected highlights related to open science.

1. Promoting and protecting freedom, integrity and security in science and research

...

We ... have decided to explore a Working Group to strengthen the cooperation between the G7 partners on
effective science communication. The focus is on the promotion of an evidence
informed development of science communication practice and enhanced science
literacy.

We support the work and results achieved so far by the G7 Open Science Working
Group. The group has made noticeable progress in examining data-sharing
infrastructures, research evaluation policies and open science incentives, and lessons
of research on research, and has identified barriers, challenges and enablers for
practicing open science that deserve and require common action (see Annex). We
encourage the group to continue its exploratory work and follow up with tangible
recommendations based on good practices and guiding principles.

Annex to the G7 Science Ministers` Communiqué 2022

https://www.bmbf.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/de/2022/220613-g7-annex.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3

II. Open Science and Open Science Working Group (OSWG)

 

We will continue to promote open science with open and rapid sharing of knowledge,
data and tools. We recognize and reacknowledge the importance of our universities,
research organisations and science academies, as well as the industrial sector and civil
society groups. We jointly pursue these common goals, with renewed vigour and
determination in the continuation of previous declarations on international
cooperation in research and innovation.

We recognize open science as an essential enabler of scientific integrity and good
science communication. Making scientific research available to scientists, innovators,
students, educators, government and non-government entities, the private sector,
and the general public therefore providing the transparency necessary to build trust
in science. It also helps to ensure that scientific results are communicated in ways
that are open and equitably accessible to all based on mutual trust and confidence.

 

...

 

Event: The rise of Open Science in Canada

Unlocking Science: The rise of Open Science in Canada - Perspectives from Early Career Researchers

June 2, 2022
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM EDT

In this cafe, we will hear from two guest speakers about the importance and practice of open science, followed by small group discussion in break-out rooms to discuss how early career researchers can move open science forward. We will be discussing open science recommendations in the context of UNESCO’s open science framework.

Featuring:

• Dr. Masha Cemma, a policy advisor to the Chief Science Advisor of Canada
• Dylan Roskams-Edris, JD, Open Science Alliance Officer for the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute

UNESCO launches a global consultation to develop a Recommendation on Open Science

UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science will be prepared through a regionally balanced, multistakeholder, inclusive and transparent consultation process.  This process is guided by an Open Science Advisory Committee and is expected to lead to the adoption of the Recommendation by UNESCO Member States in 2021.

...

All Open Science stakeholders, including scientists and scientific institutes, science publishers, science policy makers etc., are encouraged to participate and  to share their insights [through] a global survey.

from UNESCO launches a global consultation to develop a standard-setting instrument on Open Science

UNESCO has a Global Open Access Portal (GOAP) with a great deal of information about open access worldwide.  They also provide a series of learning modules about open access.

Roadmap for Open Science from the Chief Science Advisor of Canada

Canada's Chief Science Advisor, Dr. Mona Nemer, has released her Roadmap for Open Science.

This roadmap is a set of ten recommendations to the Government of Canada.

To understand the sequence of what happens next, Recommendation 3 specifies the creation of departmental Open Science Action Plans.

departments and agencies should develop action plans for Open Science by October 2020

It's those action plans that will determine departmental implementations of the recommendations.

That being said, the Roadmap calls for common government-wide approaches for recommendation 4 on open access and recommendation 5 on FAIR data.

federal science community should use a common approach to achieving [these] recommendation[s]

These recommendations read, in part

4. Federal departments and agencies should make federal science articles* openly accessible by January 2022 and federal science publications* openly accessible by January 2023, while respecting privacy, security, ethical considerations and appropriate intellectual property protection.

This recommendation aims to achieve Open Access by default without an embargo period.

5. Federal departments and agencies should develop strategies and tools to implement FAIR data principles to ensure interoperability of scientific and research data* and metadata standards by January 2023, with a phased plan for full implementation by January 2025.

There is a proposed governance mechanism, which reads in part

8. ... a new high-level Open Science Steering Committee co-chaired by the Chief Science Advisor and either or both the Chief Information Officer of Canada and the President of Shared Services Canada.

The terms of reference and relationship structure with departments and agencies should be developed by June 2020.

The Roadmap is available online in both official languages:

• Roadmap for Open Science - or direct PDF download / Feuille de route pour la science ouverte - document PDF

There was a press release: Roadmap for Open Science to reduce barriers and speed up discovery / Feuille de route pour la science ouverte visant à réduire les obstacles et à accélérer les découvertes.

SIDEBAR: Both the Roadmap for Open Science and departmental Open Science Action Plans are milestones in the Open Science commitment in the Government of Canada's 2018-2020 National Action Plan on Open Government.  END SIDEBAR

Disclaimer: I worked on the Open Science commitments in the National Action Plans on Open Government from September 2014 to October 2019.

Previously:
January 10, 2019  Open Science in Canada's 2018-2020 Open Government Plan

Open Science project of the Chief Science Advisor of Canada

Open Science can be found on page 30 of the PDF, in the section The Year Ahead - New Projects in the Chief Science Advisor of Canada's 2018 Annual Report.

Read the report for the full text.

The project includes a commitment to an Open Science Roadmap

For its part, Canada needs a roadmap for open science, with a plan that moves beyond an incremental approach drawing on existing resources. In the coming year, my office will be working with senior leadership from federal science-based departments and agencies, in coordination with the federal granting agencies, to create a roadmap by July 2019.

This commitment is also in Canada's 2018-2020 National Action Plan on Open Government.

Previously:
September 29, 2017  Chief Science Advisor - Government of Canada

Open Science in US 4th Open Gov Action Plan 2019-2021

The US released its 4^th Open Government Plan on February 21, 2019.

https://open.usa.gov/assets/files/NAP4-fourth-open-government-national-action-plan.pdf

Their plan will run from 2019 to 2021.

It includes an open science commitment.

3) Provide Public Access to Federally Funded Research

Primarily through the National Science and Technology Council (Council), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy coordinates United States efforts to make the results of Federally funded scientific research more accessible and useful to the public, industry, and the scientific community. In the Council’s Subcommittee on Open Science, thirty-two United States agency funders collaborate to improve the preservation, discoverability, accessibility, and usability of Federally funded scientific research, with the aims of bolstering the reliability of that research, accelerating scientific discovery, stimulating innovation, enhancing economic growth and job creation.

In 2018, the Subcommittee on Open Science was re-chartered to promote open science principles across the Federal Government and increase public access to Federally-funded research results. The Subcommittee’s priorities include:

1. Facilitating coordination across Federal Government agencies on open science efforts;
2. Developing appropriate incentives to encourage researchers to adopt open science principles;
3. Streamlining and synchronizing agency and researcher data management practices for maximum utility to the public;
4. Collaborating with academia, researcher communities, and industry toward the development of research data standards that further open science.

As part of the Subcommittee’s objectives, it will develop a report that provides recommendations for improvements to existing Federal open access policies and continued collaboration between agencies on achieving open access objectives.

---

For more information see https://open.usa.gov/

Previously:
January 10, 2019  Open Science in Canada's 2018-2020 Open Government Plan
April 5, 2018  Open Science in France's 2018-2020 Open Government Plan

Open Science in Canada's 2018-2020 Open Government Plan

Following a public consultation process, the final version of Canada's 2018-2020 Open Government Plan for the Open Government Partnership has been released.

https://open.canada.ca/en/content/canadas-2018-2020-national-action-plan-open-government

This includes a commitment on open science, the third Canadian open government plan to have such a commitment.

Commitment

The Government of Canada will make federal science, scientific data, and scientists more accessible. We will:

• develop a Canada Open Science Roadmap to provide a plan for greater openness in federal science and research activities
• provide a platform for Canadians to find and access open access publications from federal scientists
• raise public awareness of federal scientists’ work and of open science
• promote open science and solicit feedback on stakeholder needs
• measure progress in implementing open science and the benefits it can provide

You can see the Canadian federal Open Government website for the full details of Commitment 5 Open Science and associated milestones.

Disclaimer: I work on the open science commitment.

The commitment is focused on federal governmental internal ("intramural") science.  There are many other open science related activities in Canada, including the work of the research funding Tri-Agencies (NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR) on Open Access and Research Data Management, as well as IDRC work on international open access, open data for development and open science.  Canadian universities and research organisations also have a variety of open access, research data and open science activities.

Previously:
July 15, 2016 - Open Science in Canada's 2016-2018 Open Government Plan

Feedback requested on Canada's draft 2018-2020 Open Gov Plan

The Government of Canada has released its final draft 4th Plan on Open Government 2018-2020, as part of its participation in the Open Government Partnership (OGP).  The plan has 10 draft commitments, which are available in Google Docs for commenting:

1. User-friendly open government
2. Financial transparency and accountability
3. Corporate transparency
4. Digital government and services
5. Open science
6. Healthy democracy
7. Access to Information
8. Feminist and inclusive open government
9. Reconciliation and open government
10. Leadership and collaboration

Feedback can also be provided via email to [email protected]

The Open Science commitment has four milestones:

• Pilot an open science portal to provide access to open access publications from federal scientists
• [Launch an online directory of National Research Council Canada scientists]
• Promote open science and actively solicit feedback on stakeholder needs for open data and open science
• Measure the Government of Canada’s progress in implementing open science, and the benefits open science can provide to Canadians

The deadline for feedback is August 13, 2018.

The 2016-2018 Open Government Plan, which also included an Open Science commitment, is now completed.

Twitter:

• @opengovcan
• #opengovcan

Disclaimer: I am employed by the Government of Canada to work on Open Science.

Provide feedback on the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy

The three federal research funding agencies—the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (the agencies)—have developed a draft Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy, which aims to support Canadian research excellence by fostering sound digital data management and data stewardship practices.

feedback on the draft policy is requested by August 31, 2018

Feedback can be sent electronically to any of the following email addresses:

SSHRC:

[email protected]

NSERC:

[email protected]

CIHR:

[email protected]

Open Science in France's 2018-2020 Open Government Plan

France has released its final 2018-2020 National Action Plan for the Open Government Partnership: Plan d'action national pour la France (PDF).  You can read a summary of the launch: #OpenGov #OpenParliament : les plans d’action du Gouvernement et de l’Assemblée nationale pour une action publique transparente et collaborative ont été lancés.

The plan includes an Open Science commitment.

Engagement 18
Construire un écosystème de la « science ouverte »
pp. 57-59

Il vise à construire un écosystème dans lequel la science sera plus cumulative, plus fortement étayée par des données, plus transparente, plus intègre, plus rapide et d’accès plus universel.

Actions (rough translation):

• Create an Open Science Committee - 2018
• Quantitative monitoring of open access for national scientific literature - 2019
• Transparent monitoring/reporting of article processing charges (APCs) - 2020
• Transparent monitoring/reporting of expenditures on electronic acquisitions for university libraries - 2018
• Open data on the financing of research projects – 2019
• National use of ORCID identifiers for scientific researchers – 2018 or 2019
• Accelerate the development of the national open access repository HAL ( https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ )
• Enrich the scanR ( https://scanr.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/ ) and Isidore ( https://www.rechercheisidore.fr/ ) science search engines – 2018 to 2020
• Communicate with the scientific community about the implications of the loi numérique ( https://www.economie.gouv.fr/republique-numerique ) for open access and open data – 2018 or 2019
• With consultation, recommend a policy for open data associated with (peer-reviewed journal) articles and for data papers – no date specified
• Progressively put in place research data management plans as a requirement in project applications, and encourage open data from funded projects – 2019

Chan Zuckerberg Open Science

Information about Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) Science can be found at

https://chanzuckerberg.com/science

In particular, under "Our Approach to Supporting Projects", there is context about the CZI perspective on Open Science

https://chanzuckerberg.com/science#Approach

• Intellectual Property Should we build an IP portfolio, or should IP be generated by a CZI-supported investigator or research project, our policy is that the IP should be made freely available for academic and noncommercial use. Where IP is developed together with other organizations, we will promote non-exclusive licensing of technologies so that they have the broadest reach and impact.
• Data sharing and software We are deeply committed to developing and using platforms that disseminate data openly and freely. We are also committed to releasing software under maximally permissive open-source licenses, and developing software collaboratively in the open through sites like GitHub. We are committed to the long-term sustainability of our projects – when needed, we will explore alternative ways to ensure data access through permanent archives. Also when needed, we will work with regulatory groups to ensure that data requiring protection or controlled access are handled in a controlled and proper way in agreement with national and international standards.
• Publication We support full publication without conditions or restrictions on academic and publication freedom. We strongly encourage, and in some cases, may require, researchers to deposit manuscripts as preprints before peer review to increase access to research findings and to communicate results more quickly.

There is some additional text in the RFA for the Neurodegeneration Challenge Network, in the Collaboration and Open Science section

CZI supports open science values and principles. To accelerate scientific discovery and collaboration and rapid dissemination, CZI supports a consent, sharing, and publication policy for open and rapid dissemination of research results and a policy for software development that maximizes accessibility, reuse, and shared development.

You can also watch Dr. Cori  Bargmann, the President of Chan Zuckerberg Science, present a 2018 AAAS plenary entitled Accelerating Biomedical Research

http://players.brightcove.net/53038991001/Byx2STOH0_default/index.html?videoId=5736045412001

Previously:
April 25, 2017  Chan Zuckerberg - Meta and preprints

SGC Open Notebook Science - January 2018

On January 19, 2018 the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) launched an initiative for Open Notebook Science at an event supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Wellcome Trust.

Open notebook science is basically the concept that researchers publish their research publicly as they conduct it, with all the challenges and successes along the way.  You can read more in Wikipedia - Open notebook science.

An interesting aspect of the particular model of open notebook science being employed by SGC is the combination of described datasets uploaded to the SGC Open Notebooks community in Zenodo, with links from more general descriptions of activity in a blog platform hosted by SGC.

There was coverage related to the event in various venues:

• eLife - Open notebooks galore: The Structural Genomics Consortium - Jan 19, 2018
• University of Toronto news - Open science: University of Toronto researchers to publish lab notes in real time - January 19, 2018
• Springer Nature - Research Data - Data Dialogues - Open Lab Notebooks to increase impact and accelerate discovery - by Matthieu Schapira - Jan 26, 2018

UPDATE 2018-02-19: Rachel Harding and Aled Edwards discussed open notebook science before the event on the Colper Science Podcast.  ENDUPDATE

Twitter hashtag was #SGCOpenNotebooks

Webcast is available at https://youtu.be/vxoxKVUWsUY

Presentations (including mine) linked in the agenda below.  Note that due to technical difficulties the first few slides of my presentation don't show in the webcast.

09:00 - 09:10	Matthieu Schapira, PI, SGC - Twitter @mattschap Introductory remarks
Session 1 – Chair: Matthieu Schapira
09:10 - 09:30	Aled Edwards, Director, SGC - Twitter @AledMEdwards Scientists and society: striking a new bargain (in Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.1158763)
09:30 - 10:30	SGC Extreme Open Science Unit: Carla Alamillo, David Dilworth, Genna Luciani, Heng Zhang, Jolene Ho, Jon Fu Wong, Liz Brown, Mandeep Man, Megha Abbey, Nirav Kapadia, Roslin Adamson, Rachel Harding. Scientific project outlines (5 minutes each) (in Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.1158769)
10:30 - 11:00	Rachel Harding, PDF, SGC and open notebook trailblazer - Twitter @labscribbles 2 Years of Open Notebooking; lessons learnt from Labscribbles (in Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.1155846)
11:00 - 11:15	Coffee Break
Session 2 – Chair: Arij Al Chawaf, Director SGC Strategic Alliances - Twitter @TweetsFromArij
11:15 - 11:45	David Carr, Open Research Program Manager, The Wellcome Trust, UK Open Research – a funder perspective (in Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.1158767)
11:45 - 12:15	Richard Akerman, Senior Policy Analyst, Environment and Climate Change Canada - Twitter @scilib Open Science in the Government of Canada (in Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.1160435) - also available on Slideshare - starts at 2h35m into webcast on YouTube
12:15 - 12:45	Kelsey Merkley, Open Program Designer, Creative Commons - Twitter @bella_velo Creative Commons CC-BY: opportunities for open (in Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.1158765)

Previously:
September 21, 2007  Wired on open data
August 9, 2007  the peer review logo
June 28, 2007  thinking about open science - me being sceptical

Open Science in 2017 G7 Science Ministers' Communiqué

The G7 Open Science Working Group was created in the 2016 Science Ministers' Communiqué, the Tsukuba Communiqué (PDF)

1. Establish a working group on open science with the aims of sharing open science policies, exploring supportive incentive structures, and identifying good practices for promoting increasing access to the results of publicly funded research, including scientific data and publications, coordinating as appropriate with the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) and Research Data Alliance (RDA), and other relevant groups

The 2017 Science Ministers' Communiqué (PDF) is now available, with a statement about Open Science as well as a summary of the G7 Open Science Working Group (G7 OS WG) report.  The Communiqué directs the Open Science Working Group to continue its work.

19. We recognize that ICT developments, the digitisation and the vast availability of data, efforts to push the science frontiers, and the need to address complex economic and societal challenges, are transforming the way in which science is performed towards Open Science paradigms. We agree that an international approach can help the speed and coherence of this transition, and that it should target in particular two aspects. First, the incentives for the openness of the research ecosystem: the evaluation of research careers should better recognize and reward Open Science activities. Secondly, the infrastructures for an optimal use of research data: all researchers should be able to deposit, access and analyse scientific data across disciplines and at the global scale, and research data should adhere to the FAIR principles of being findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

20. We support the work and results achieved so far by the G7 Open Science Working group. The OS Working Group has identified priorities that deserve and require common aligned actions, both in encouraging openness and data skills in scientific research practice, through workforce development and training. We encourage the OS WG to follow-up actions taken by G7 members according to the WG’s recommendations and to collect good practices, in order to report to the next G7 Science Minister’s Meeting. In particular, we support the OS WG deepening its efforts on the two topics identified above (paragraph 19), namely the incentives for openness of the research ecosystem, including the role of research indicators and metrics relevant to open science, and the infrastructures and standards for optimal use of research. The summary report of the OS working group is attached to this Communiqué.

To extract specific priorities and direction:

• priority - incentives - "the evaluation of research careers should better recognize and reward Open Science activities"
• priority - research data infrastructure - "all researchers should be able to deposit, access and analyse scientific data across disciplines and at the global scale, and research data should adhere to the FAIR principles"
• direction - G7 OS WG - follow up (monitor) G7 member states' actions related to the WG recommendations
• direction - G7 OS WG - collect good practices
• direction - G7 OS WG - report back to the 2018 G7 Science Ministers' Meeting
• direction - G7 OS WG - deepen efforts on incentives, including research indicators and metrics relevant to open science
• direction - G7 OS WG - deepen efforts on infrastructures and standards for optimal use of research (with a particular emphasis on research data)

The statement "The summary report of the OS working group is attached to this Communiqué." is a bit confusing - the summary report is actually a separate annex document, it's not part of the main Communiqué PDF.

The summary report (PDF) also contains a key opening recommendation:

Overall, the G7 Open Science Working Group recommends that each G7 nation convene and engage with relevant stakeholders who can support moves towards incentivizing the increased adoption of Open Science in their national context.

as well as potential future discussion for the G7 in the areas of incentives and infrastructure for Open Science:

Incentives -

Potential future discussion at the G7 level: Consider approaches towards developing principles, for measuring the quality and impact of research enabled by Open Science practices. Discussions could also include means to identify, promote and implement best practices for Open Science, for example, through codes of conduct that build on existing procedures. This might lead to international consensus on the roles and responsibilities of researchers, institutions, and funders under Open Science.

Infrastructure -

Potential future discussion at the G7 level: Establish a forum for continued multilateral discussion to share information about major research data infrastructure initiatives in G7 countries and beyond. Discussion objectives could include:

• Development of a common understanding of Open Science and the related infrastructure requirements (e.g. for whom? Under which conditions?), including consideration of best practices in different disciplines of science and technology as well as in social sciences, humanities and the arts.

• Agreement to promote the FAIR principles for data resulting from government- funded research, increase discussion on sustainability and working towards shared guidelines for incorporating FAIR principles into the operations of infrastructure that support Open Science.

• Raising awareness of the necessity of well-qualified human resources and professional expertise for curation, annotation and other management of research data and incorporate them in the research processes.

Disclaimer: I was one of the Canadian representatives on the G7 Open Science Working Group in 2016-2017.

SIDEBAR: The FAIR principles mentioned are that data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable.  See e.g. https://www.force11.org/fairprinciples  END SIDEBAR

The G7 will be held in Canada in 2018.  The dates and location for the 2018 Science Ministerial have not been announced.

2016, 2017 and 2018 Science Communiqué Websites and Links

The 2016 Communiqué website is http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/others/communique_en.html and there were two annexes to the Communiqué:

• Tsukuba Communiqué(PDF：169KB)
• Attachment 1 to Tsukuba Communiqué(PDF：82KB) - G7 follow-up workshop on mapping, coordination and joint activities in the field of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and Poverty-Related Infectious Diseases (PRDs)
• Attachment 2 to Tsukuba Communiqué(PDF：126KB) - Recommendations – G7 expert workshop on future of the oceans and seas

 The 2017 Communiqué website is http://www.g7italy.it/en/documenti-ministeriali and there were four annexes to the Communiqué:

• G7 Science Communiqué
• Annex 1 - Future of the Seas and Oceans
• Annex 2 – Report of the group of senior officials on global research infrastructures
• Annex 3 - WG Neglected Tropical Diseases and Poverty Related Diseases
• Annex 4 - WG Open Science

UPDATE 2017-10-03: You can also find a standalone page about the Science Ministerial at http://www.g7italy.it/en/news/the-ministerial-meeting-on-science-has-ended END UPDATE

UPDATE 2018-02-08: There is also an Italy 2017 Science Ministerial page at http://www.g7italy.it/en/science-ministerial-meeting but the link on that page to the Communiqué is currently broken.  END UPDATE

The 2018 G7 website is http://www.international.gc.ca/g7/ - updated to https://g7.gc.ca/

Twitter:

• @G7Canada - for the duration of the 2018 Canadian G7, Twitter will be @G7
• Peter Boehm, the Deputy Minister for the 2018 G7 Summit, tweets @G7Sherpa

Chief Science Advisor - Government of Canada

The Government of Canada appointed Dr. Mona Nemer as Chief Science Advisor on September 26, 2017.

This fulfills a commitment in the mandate letter for the Minister of Science, as well as one of the items in the Open Science commitment in the 2016-2018 Open Government Plan (in both it is described as "Chief Science Officer").

The Office of the Chief Science Advisor is hosted at Innovation, Science and Economic Development.  Although the website lists a brief mandate, more detail on the key functions of the position can be found in the backgrounder to the Prime Minister's announcement:

The Chief Science Advisor’s key functions will be as follows:

• provide advice on the development and implementation of guidelines to ensure that government science is fully available to the public and that federal scientists are able to speak freely about their work;

• provide advice on creating and implementing processes to ensure that scientific analyses are considered when the Government makes decisions;

• assess and recommend ways to improve the existing science advisory function within the federal government; and

• assess and recommend ways for the Government to better support quality scientific research within the federal system.

Furthermore, the Advisor will:

• deliver an annual report to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Science on the activities of the Office of the Chief Science Advisor and the state of federal government science, including the federal science workforce and federal scientific infrastructure;

• provide and coordinate expert advice to the Minister of Science and members of Cabinet, as appropriate and requested, on key scientific issues, including the preparation of research and foresight papers for public dissemination; and,

• promote a positive and productive dialogue between federal scientists and academia, both in Canada and abroad, and raise awareness of scientific issues relevant to the Canadian public.

I have highlighted "guidelines to ensure that government science is fully available to the public" due to its overlap with Open Science.

The annual report mentioned above will be made public (this is stated in the Prime Minister's announcement).

This is primarily an advisory role to Cabinet.  The Chief Science Advisor reports to both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Science.  The term of office is three years.

Contact information for the Office of the Chief Science Advisor is available on the office website.

Dr. Nemer has also begun tweeting using official account @ChiefSciCan

Previously:
March 23, 2017  Chief Science Advisor in Budget 2017
December 5, 2016  Canadian National Chief Science Advisor competition announced

Montreal Neuro Institute launching open access platform

The Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) has announced that it will launch a new publishing platform called MNI Open Research.

The partnership is another step in The Neuro’s goal of becoming an open science institution. In December, The Neuro launched the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute (TOSI), an initiative that will facilitate the sharing of neuroscience findings worldwide to accelerate the discovery of better treatments for neurological diseases. The publishing of research results, including negative results, without restriction, is a founding pillar of TOSI.

By launching MNI Open Research, The Neuro joins Wellcome, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health in creating open research publishing platforms with the collaboration of F1000. The platforms are based on the publishing model first used on F1000Research.

McGill - Onward to open science - August 30, 2017

In a blog post for F1000, MNI Director Guy Rouleau describes some objectives for MNI Open Research:

a platform where our researchers can rapidly publish any research outputs they wish to share. Research results will be published within days of submission and invited peer review will take place on an open basis, ensuring transparency. All meaningful data, including negative results, will be made public so other scientists can avoid the same pitfalls.

Twitter:

• @TheNeuro_MNI
• @F1000

Previously:
March 24, 2017  rapid access to scientific results including Gates Foundation open access journal

an open science diagram

As part of working in the open, here is a draft diagram intended to set the Government of Canada federal open by default pilot project in the context of potential open science activities.

diagram Copyright © 2017 Government of Canada, available for reuse under the Open Government License

This diagram is part of a larger briefing on how the federal open by default pilot project, which provides public access to draft government documents, could be used in an open science context.

Your thoughts about this representation and about draft documents in an open science context are appreciated.  You can leave a comment or email [email protected]

I take no credit for the diagram (I am terrible at graphics).  It is the work of the rest of the open science team at Environment and Climate Change Canada, with particular credit to Amanda McLeod.

The government does not currently have activities in all of the areas in the diagram above.  For more about the government's open science activities, please see the Open Science commitment in the 2016-2018 Plan to the Open Government Partnership.

Note: Crossposted to Medium https://medium.com/@scilib/an-open-science-diagram-3c3671478b7c

Norway sets national open access goals

On August 22, 2017 the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research (Kunnskapsdepartementet) released National goals and guidelines for open access to research articles.  It sets out not just an open access mandate, but a number of accompanying steps and activites.  As the English document itself is brief, I will just highlight a few items:

• The goal of the government is to make all publicly funded Norwegian research articles openly available by 2024.
• The research community ... is expected to ... convert important journals within their subject areas from closed subscription based journals to open access titles.
• All publicly funded research articles must be deposited in a suitable academic repository.
• Institutions and consortia that negotiate agreements with publishers shall ensure that these agreements promote open access without increasing total costs, and that the terms and conditions are open and transparent.
• Institutions that fund research projects shall contribute to cover the costs associated with open access publishing.

It also sets a goal to "Investigate how a national repository can be realised."

You can read the full document - National goals and guidelines for open access to research articles (PDF).

So it is a multi-part policy, including not just open access publication, but also mandatory deposit (green OA), license negotiations including open terms and conditions, and direct funding support for open access costs.

In the FAQ (in Norwegian only) it makes it clear that researchers can choose their venue of publication (including closed publishers), but must always deposit their article.  It points to the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers as one source of information for choosing journals, as well as the DOAJ.  Researchers without an institutional repository are directed to contact BIBSYS for guidance.

The target to ask the research community to shift journals to open access is one I haven't seen other countries pursue.  It is a reminder of the many paths that organisations and countries are following to shift to open access, from Harvard's 2012 Faculty Advisory Council language of "move prestige to open access"¹, to the 2017 European Commission Open Science plans to launch their own OA journal ("Horizon 2020 platform for open access publishing"). 

In Norwegian:

• announcement: Åpen tilgang til vitenskapelige artikler
• page: Open tilgang til vitskapelege artiklar
• more detailed page: Nasjonale mål og retningslinjer for åpen tilgang til vitenskapelige artikler
• policy document: Nasjonale mål og retningslinjer for åpen tilgang til vitenskapelige artikler (PDF)
• detailed FAQ: Utdypende informasjon og spørsmål/svar om retningslinjene for åpen tilgang til vitenskapelige artikler

¹ The Harvard Faculty Advisory Council memo is no longer online, it looks like it went offline sometime in 2015.  I have linked to a version in the Internet Archive.

Sidebar: Norway has a national research information system called CRIStin.

Chan Zuckerberg - Meta and preprints

The Chan Zuckerberg initiative will be funding science in various areas, with a particular focus on diseases.

To accelerate this progress, we will bring scientists and engineers together in new ways, create computational and experimental tools to empower the scientific community and build a movement to support basic science research.

from https://chanzuckerberg.com/initiatives/

Chan Zuckerberg has launched with an initial US$3 billion commitment to basic research, as reported in Inside Philanthropy.

There is a particular emphasis on funding high-risk ideas:

Forty-seven investigators will receive up to US$1.5 million each in the next five years from the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a partnership between the couple’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and three universities: Stanford, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco. Together, the biohub grants announced on 8 February total more than $50 million.

“We told researchers, give us your riskiest ideas,” says biohub co-leader Stephen Quake, a bioengineer at Stanford.

from Nature - 'Riskiest ideas' win $50 million from Chan Zuckerberg Biohub - February 8, 2017

Several projects and technologies have been announced, including:

Chan Zuckerberg Biohub - this appears to be the central focus for the science activities

Meta - a science search engine that Chan Zuckerberg purchased and has promised to make available to the public for free.  It is planned it will become a sort of AI analysis tool for the science literature.

There is no open science policy statement available that I can find on any of the Chan Zuckerberg sites.  There is apparently a requirement to post preprints at time of submission.

The biohub investigators must post their manuscripts on open-access preprint servers, such as the arXiv, as soon as they submit the paper to a peer-reviewed journal. But researchers are permitted to file for patents, which would be owned jointly by the biohub and the scientists’ home institution.

from Nature - 'Riskiest ideas' win $50 million from Chan Zuckerberg Biohub - February 8, 2017

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Manager of Computational Biology, Jeremy Freeman, has made some statements about making data and code available.

Will all your research be peer-reviewed, published in journals and published for all to see?
We are absolutely committed to open dissemination of data and code and knowledge; that’s something I have been committed to all the time I’ve been a scientist.

The Guardian - Mark Zuckerberg’s man in the lab: ‘I want science to happen faster’ - March 5, 2017

Scientific research is still shared using a system developed more than a hundred years ago: the academic paper. “That’s how we disseminate knowledge, it’s a PDF document,” Freeman said. The data, the code and the interactive elements of the research should all be interactive, he argued. “There’s an obvious need to modernise and scale-up the technology we’re using,” Freeman said.

Wired - Meet the man tasked with speeding-up science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative - March 12, 2017

So for the moment it looks like preprints, open code (open source?) and open data.  But still not clear about open access.

A unified position statement from Chan Zuckerberg on their website about their open science approach would provide some clarity.  This could be a page along the lines of the Gates Foundation Open Access Policy.

UPDATE 2017-04-26: An announcement today from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) that Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will be providing funding for the development and expansion of the bioRxiv preprints server and that "All software developed through this collaboration will be made available as open source."

Nature has a bit more information in BioRxiv preprint server gets cash boost from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, including the possibility of better enabling bioRxiv for text mining and connecting it to Meta.

Previously:
February 17, 2017  Many preprint services

rapid access to scientific results including Gates Foundation open access journal

The Gates Foundation will be launching its own open access journal, Gates Open Research.

https://gatesopenresearch.org/

"a platform for rapid author-led publication and open peer review of research"

The Gates Foundation joins the Wellcome Trust in launching this approach, and they are both using the same underlying platform, F1000.

https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/

(Note that this is in addition to the previous announcement that the Gates Foundation will be paying Science to enable open access to Gates-funded research in what were previously closed-access journals.)

In a Times Higher Education story, Jean-Claude Burgelman suggests the European Commission might also create its own open access journal.

Nature News also covered the story: Gates Foundation announces open-access publishing venture.

These two journals will also gain the capability for open peer review that is part of the F1000 platform.  There is a short blog post on the F1000 site: Gates Open Research: the journey continues.

Related to this announcement there is also a (free) Economist Babbage podcast item on preprints and open peer review

https://soundcloud.com/theeconomist/babbage-ubers-trail-of-woes#t=1:04 (from 1:04 to 7:46)

and (not at all free) - three articles in the Economist:

March 23, 2017 Economist cover item (what the Economist calls a Leader): “Science’s publishing problem” – Leaders consist of a summary article and a more detailed article

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21719480-and-how-cast-them-shackles-scientific-journals

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21719438-about-change-findings-medical-research-are-disseminated-too

It happens that the Economist also did a piece about altmetrics in the same issue (altmetrics aren’t discussed in the podcast)

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21719441-alternative-metrics-extend-concept-citation-beyond-journal

Previously:
February 17, 2017  Many preprint services