Category Archives: oa.un

3rd UN Open Science Conference Recap: Open Science Central to Achieving UN Sustainability Goals – SPARC

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“From mitigating climate change to preparing for the next pandemic, so many pressing challenges demand global collaboration. Yet many researchers don’t have access to the latest scientific discoveries or avenues to contribute their solutions. This is prompting a growing call for open science practices and a more equitable knowledge sharing ecosystem in which librarians can play a key role.

Participants in the 3rd United Nations Open Science Conference February 8-10 called for policy and culture change to democratize the record of science. There was a sense of urgency among the 100 people gathered in New York and 2,000 online at the hybrid event for research to be shared across borders in order to accelerate progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The conference emphasized three priorities: equity in open scholarship; reforming scientific publishing; and strengthening the science-policy-society interface….”

Open Science Conference 2023 | United Nations

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“Since 2019, when the Dag Hammarskjöld Library held the 1st Open Science Conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the global open movement has been significantly enriched with new national and international policies and frameworks as well as daring and visionary initiatives, both private and public.

At the 2nd Global Open Science Conference, From Tackling the Pandemic to Addressing Climate Change, in July 2021 more than a year into the pandemic that had upturned daily lives globally, participants from around the world engaged in a public dialogue focusing on what open science has learned from COVID-19 and how this can be applied into actions addressing the global climate crisis, at the interface of science, technology, policy and research. The Conference took stock of actions undertaken nationally and internationally, collected lessons learned and identified directions for the way forward. Open science was recognized as the keystone to assert everyone’s right “to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”. Speakers and audience asked for the complete overhaul of outdated scientific processes, publishing and research assessment practices that oppose open science principles, proposed global curation infrastructures for the record of science and platform-agnostic discovery services, as well as enhanced bibliodiversity, inclusivity, and multilingualism….”

Open Science Conference 2023 | United Nations

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“On 23 November 2021, following an inclusive, transparent and multistakeholder consultative process, UNESCO’s Recommendation on Open Science was adopted by 193 Member States during the 41st session of the Organization’s General Conference. “This Recommendation outlines a common definition, shared values, principles and standards for open science at the international level and proposes a set of actions conducive to a fair and equitable operationalization of open science for all at the individual, institutional, national, regional and international levels.” So what comes next?

From 8 to 10 February 2023 – in the lead-up to the International Day of Women and Girls in Science –, the 3rd Open Science Conference will bring together policy makers, representatives of intergovernmental organizations, researchers, scholars, librarians, publishers and civil society. Under the theme Accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals, Democratizing the Record of Science they will engage in a dialogue about the opportunities and challenges of practicing open science and explore initiatives, themes and perspectives into the open scientific method and the digital scholarly communications cycle….”

League of Nations Archives now fully digitized | UN Archives Geneva

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The UN Archives Geneva platform gives access to the fonds and collections managed by the United Nations Library and Archives in Geneva, including the archives of the United Nations in Geneva, the League of Nations (1919-1946), international peace movements (from 1870), and private papers.

It offers the possibility to search both the description of files or archival documents and in the full text of archival documents that have been digitized.

 

 

Librarian (Scholarly Communications), P3 (Temporary Job Opening)

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“This position is located in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, Outreach Division, Department of Global Communications (DGC). The United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library connects Member State delegations, UN staff, researchers and world citizens with trusted information/data, facts and human knowledge about and for the UN. It provides a foundation for facilitation, dissemination, use, access to, engagement with, and preservation of information and knowledge in support for the work, principles and mission of the United Nations. The incumbent reports to the Unit Coordinator for Outreach and Community Engagement and to the Chief Librarian….”

Building Structural Equity and Inclusion in Open Scholarship

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“The choices we make in the transition to open system infrastructures for producing and sharing knowledge will affect how equitable Open Science systems will be in the future. The recent inequities in global health outcomes and the global vaccine inequality are however the stark reality. Institutions can work towards building structural equity by adopting values based in humanities, examining the ways in which current solutions might repeat systemic oppression, and centering and empowering women and vulnerable populations during the solution/system creation process, not after. Open Science can contribute to the creation of equity only if it enables historically marginalized people to learn about and research topics that are important to them and their communities, have their research recognized and rewarded – not through proxies –, and translate this into impact for their communities. Proposals for increasing equity in Open Science include removing barriers to access and publication of scientific papers, lowering language barriers, openly sharing unique collections, centering the voices of the most vulnerable, and decolonizing knowledge. Open scholarship models and infrastructures in science and humanities education attuned to the SDGs implementations and UNESCO’s Recommendation on Open Science, can also substantially contribute towards equity. The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science in particular is the long-awaited, landmark instrument-setting agreement that provides an initial framework. In a society that daily manifests the pathology of data misuse, that heightens barriers to accessing scientific output, and allows the overconcentration of data-aggregating powers at the hands of purely commercial platforms lacking the checks and balances of democratic, public institutions, there are steps that both institutions and researchers at their workbench need to take to ensure access to research production and dissemination is equitable, data collection more democratic and transparently participatory….”

Open Science Policies as an Accelerator for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

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“The Journal of Science Policy & Governance (JSPG), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY) are pleased to announce a call for papers and competition on shaping the future of global scientific practices in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, focused on Open Science Policies as an Accelerator for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Open science is a movement towards a more accessible, more transparent, and more participatory way of designing, conducting, publishing, and evaluating scholarly research. Open science can be a true game changer in bridging the science, technology and innovation gaps between and within countries, fulfilling the human right to science and leaving no one behind. 

We invite students, post-doctoral researchers, policy fellows, early career researchers and young professionals from around the world to develop bold and innovative policy and governance ideas for exploring the untapped potential of open science to create a better society, and push for the attainment of the UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Submission deadline: July 10, 2022. …”

Open Access Publishing: Issues and Way Forward – Predatory Journals and Conferences

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“One of the major challenges the world has faced the past two years has been the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With scientists putting up lot of research on COVID, the World Health Organization (WHO) came up with a WHO: COVID-19 Literature on corona virus disease. This database provides a way for the general public, along with scientists, to check the scientific literature on COVID-19, in one place, and this also results in wider reach/dissemination.

However, we do not have a common database for other important research areas concerning the general public, such as “Cancer Research” or “Climate Change”. When we say open access, the main aim should be open science to all, and we need more such databases by international agencies like the United Nations to collate research articles on important areas such as the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, which should be the need of the hour. Such initiatives will help in the real dissemination of science to the general public, and give authors of important research contributions, the visibility they deserve. This will be unlike publishers asking authors to promote their articles and measuring them with their commercial metrics….”

Working with UNHCR to better collect, archive and re-use data about some of the world’s most vulnerable people – Open Knowledge Foundation blog

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“The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a global organisation ‘dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people’.

Around the world, at least 82 million people have been forced to flee their homes. Many of these people are refugees and asylum seekers. Over half are internally displaced within the border of their own country. The vast majority of these people are hosted in developing countries. Learn more here. 

The Raw Internal Data Library (RIDL)  supports this strategy by creating a safe, organized place for UNHCR to store its data , with metadata that helps staff find the data they need and enables them to re-use it in multiple types of analysis. 

Since 2018, the team at Open Knowledge Foundation have been working with the RIDL team to build this library using CKAN –  the open source data management system. 

 

OKF spoke with Mariann Urban at UNHCR Global Data Service about the project to learn more. …”
 

UNESCO General Conference: landmark global agreements expected on Artificial Intelligence and Open Science as the agency celebrates its 75th anniversary

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“Several important decisions are expected from UNESCO’s 193 Member States, in particular on cultural heritage, on global education policy, on the ethics surrounding technology and the vital need for greater openness around scientific research….”

Open Access Australasia Webinar

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“The contribution of open access to the UN Sustainable Development Goals presented by Director of Research and Corporate at UNSW Library, Fiona Bradley

The UN Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2016. Five years in, great progress has been made in some areas while others lag. When the goals were adopted, the importance of data, evidence, and research to demonstrate progress was emphasised, but how much has been achieved and what role does open access play?

Join us for a brief overview of the process that led to the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda process and the ongoing review mechanisms will emphasize the agenda as a tool for advocacy at global, national, and local institutional levels in which open access and access to information contribute to underpinning the achievement of all other goals.”

Open Science and the UNESCO initiative – International Year of Basic Sciences for Development

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“Although Open Science is not new, it stems from the publication of the first scientific journals in the late seventeenth century, profound new digital opportunities have inspired scientific communities to progressively mature and crystallize the essentials of a new Open Science movement. It enlarges scientific and social horizons in the pursuit of knowledge, its dissemination and use.

Intrinsic to this new paradigm are historic values of scientific self-organization, principles of freedom and responsibility, universal accessibility and sharing, inclusivity and equitability, together with responsibilities for education and capacity development, as reflected in the statutes of the International Science Council (ISC) and in its vision of “science as a global public good”. The expanded social networks of this new openness are exemplified in trends of increased multi-nationally authored scientific papers, the growth of trans-disciplinary collaboration and of citizen science.

The shaping of this new paradigm has largely been achieved through the work of the national academies, international scientific unions and associations, and related bodies that are represented in the membership of the ISC, and reflected in its statement on Open Science. National and regional funders of science have increasingly supported the Open Science imperative by investments in supportive infrastructures and promotion of open access publishing as a condition of funding….

Now UNESCO has taken a stance. It seeks to formalize these trends at an international level by placing a recommendation on Open Science before its 193 Member States for their endorsement. It has engaged with the scientific community over the last year to generate a long list of draft recommendations for open access to the published record of science, open data, open educational resources, open-source software and code, open hardware and infrastructures, and open engagement with society.

The draft’s first contact with political reality, in the form of national representatives, took place in early May 2021. Representatives were almost universally supportive, and even added “bite” on some crucial issues….”