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Giving focus to the Cultural, Scientific and Social Dimension of EU - CELAC relations

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“HOT TOPIC” WEB CONFERENCE: TOWARDS AN OPEN SCIENCE AND OPEN ACCESS SCIENTIFIC EULAC RELATIONS 18th of April 2018- 10-12 Quito Time

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Introduction

Access to academic production becomes an essential element for social development since it allows knowing research and technologies, to develop new studies based on existing knowledge and to act on social reality consistently. Tedesco (2000) points out those digital technologies make possible to democratize the production of knowledge as favors the dissemination of knowledge beyond political, social and economic boundaries.

In this respect, Open Sciences (OS) and Open Access (OA) initiatives represent key elements for both significant producing changes in scholarly communication and reducing the problems of developing countries. The OS refers to the availability and use of scientific data, methodologies and research results that allows increasing the transparency, openness and reproducibility of science. The OA refers to the free availability and use of scientific production is erasing the economic barriers to access to information, allowing people to access the costs of reading, downloading, distributing and using the materials (Budapest 2002. Bethesd 2003 and Berlin 2003). The OA attenuates the economic and infrastructure limitations and allows researchers to participate in networks of knowledge and increase the impact of LAC countries in the global agenda. In the same way, the OA, promotes the
demarcation of the academic production, because it allows the diversification of the nodes of scientific production and the academic communications (Peter Suber, 2015).

Both OS and OA are valuable tools to share, collaborate and create knowledge. They are key elements in understanding the distribution and production of scientific knowledge in a collaborative and coordinated way between academics and institutions (Melero R and Hernández San Miguel, J, 2014, Arza, Fressoli, Sebastian, 2017; Lain, 2017).

Departure point

During this year we carried out the analysis of the interviews to scientists of Latin American and European institutions in the framework of the WP4 "Scientific Dimensions of UE-CELAC relations", we have focused on analyzing the arguments of scientists about the use of open science tools in the practice of knowledge production and dissemination. In this framework, we found a disparity of cases that could defend or question the use of open access and open science. The key arguments are: 

  • The potential of open access to democratize knowledge by allowing free access to it. Researchers that had had previous situations of difficulties in accessing scientific information (due to lack of infrastructure and economic resources) defend that it is necessary to promote the publication in open access journals.
  • The potentialities of the free dissemination of knowledge to establish a dialogue among professionals which allows promoting the continuous improvement of the scientific production and the transparency of the scientific production.
  • The limits of open access journals in producing equity in scientific production and dissemination by the payment of fees to the research group that presents their study. This would reopen the gap between those who have resources and those who do not, limiting the publication capacity and the scientific competence.
  • The relative impact to OA publications in some scientific areas (such as mathematics and biology). Interviewers argue that open access publications tend to have lower impact levels than paid publications with publishers of a scientific career.

GOAL:

To discuss the potentialities and limitations of Open Access and Open Science in scientific production as a strategy to achieve the development of equitable, cooperative knowledge and quality. Thus, the purpose of the activity is to open a debate on different positions on Open Science (OS) and Open Access (OA) in order to identify their potentialities, their the barriers in scientific practices and, in particular, to build possible joint solutions to promote the OS and OA as a tool that supports the democratization of access and production of knowledge.

Key questions:

Define the actual situation in EULAC countries:

  • What are the Latin America and Europe strategies to promote OA and OS?
  • Who promote OA and OS in Latin America and Europe?
  • Are any difference between the Latin America and Europe strategies?
  • What are the best practices to promote the OA and OS?

What are the potentialities about the use of OA and OS in the context of collaborative knowledge production between EULAC countries?

  • Why is important to promote OA and OS?
  • How could OA and OS dim the gap between low income and middle/high income countries in the knowledge production?
  • Experiences of successful knowledge production between Latin-American countries and Europe. What is the role of OA and OS in those experiences?

Challenges of OA and OS

  • What are the limits of OA and OS in promoting equal access and knowledge production?
  • How to develop OA and OS policies that take in to account the economic and social inequalities among countries and institutions?
  • What is the relationship between Open Access and Open Science and the quality of the research production? How to guarantee the quality of Open Science and Open Access sources?

Speakers

  • Ernest Abadal: “Policies to promote open access: differences between Europe and Latin America"
  • Ricardo Hartley: “Beyond the structure: education as a pillar of open science”
  • Ignasi Labastida: "Preparing Research Institutions to Adopt Open Science Practices and Principles"
  • TBC: “Policies and strategies to spread Open Access in Latin America. The case of Argentina”

Moderators:

Simone Belli / Valeria Santorno Lamelas

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