Dear Víctor Rocco , I think that Open Science is very important in democratizing societies around the world, and by extension that it is really crucial in achieving the SDGs. Of course the SDGs may be achieved through closed science made in university or private labs with the common people merely consuming it, but I think this process will not be sustainable itself in the long-term neither for the HEI institutions themselves nor for the lay people in society. You already see that 'science' as performed in the HEIs and by private institutions is increasingly being doubted and viewed as part of 'the system' or more plainly, part of the problem rather than the solution. For en example, just see the backlash against good science during the COVID epidemic. A way to restore trust in science, in my opinion perhaps the only way, would be to open it up to citizens. What do you think?

Ideas, ideas - scientists going out of their way to engaging with citizens, maybe participating in citizen assemblies in which scientific topics may be discussed, scientists collectively seeking to abolish the journal system in favour of something which will be immediately accessible to lay people, lay people involved in setting the agenda of scientific research, i guess many other ideas but i'll pause here to check whether i'm talking bullshit :)

thanks for your attention if you've made it here!

Best Wishes,

Haris

Thanks Haris Shekeris , I agree but regrettably democratizing science is still weak and underdeveloped. However, it is a very powerful topic and also a a challenging mission.

I think that Open Science is one of the key strategies to really produce impact in our society by HEI and all the actors related to this ecosystem. We can't just continue just trying to get better results in the rankings but try hard to bring real solutions for the society and involve the common people, as you meaned it, into the discussions, planning and also by participating as data collectors (citizen science).

Certainly, we can't maintain the current system so much longer. A transition is beginning, and I hope that the new rules that are being agreed globally will change and improve the truly mafias we have created in the scholar publishing system (at diverse levels). I prefer not giving examples.

I would be happy to hear more of your ideas if you want to share them with me. That is the idea of my question, to get different ideas and views about the chosen context.

Best Wishes,

Victor

Dear Mr. Rocco!

You spotted a very important issue. An editorial deals with the topic you raised:

Editorial (2024). Open science — embrace it before it’s too late, 6 Feb. 2024, Nature 626, 233 (2024), doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00322-2, Quote: "Open science aligns with UNESCO’s founding mission for science and education to benefit all of humanity; and with the idea that access to science is a human right. But the organization’s interest in open science goes beyond these broad founding principles."

Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00322-2

Yours sincerely, Bulcsu Szekely

Dear Bulcsu Szekely ,

thank you for your opinion and also for sharing that document. Indeed, that cite opens another complex topics. Is the access to science a human right or even education is a human right? Who defines what is a human right and who are committed to respect that position? Remember we had slavery until few years ago and currently a kind of modern-slavery, taking into account many unsafe jobs that ends with the life of millions of persons every year (United Nations Global Impact).

Available at: https://unglobalcompact.org/take-action/safety-andhealth

The UNESCO assure that "The right to quality education is already firmly rooted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international legal instruments, the majority of which are the result of the work of UNESCO and the United Nations."

And also UNESCO affirms that "Education is a basic human right that works to raise men and women out of poverty, level inequalities and ensure sustainable development. But worldwide 244 million children and youth are still out of school for social, economic and cultural reasons."

Available at: https://www.unesco.org/en/right-education

Nevertheless, we are disrespecting this declarated right when we still have that huge number of people (children and youth) without access to be educated. Then, we could suppose that there are a lot more people without access to science, to learn it, to practice it, and to read the enormous quantity of research outputs that are being published everyday.

Perhaps, we should concentrate more in quality and access that in production, productivity and citations-based impact metrics. There is challenge that we have to overcome for the future generations of human beings and the whole planet.

All the best,

Victor

I want to share with you this interesting initiative called the "Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI)": https://sdgs.un.org/HESI

And also this new available certification, recently launched, and known as "SET4HEI": https://set4hei.org/certification/

Dear Víctor Rocco , following on from your longer post above touching many topics. What part of education is a human right? I remember something important an African friend (migrant i think) wrote on fb (I don't know if he cited or it was his): 'teach a country english rather than agriculture, and you'll end up with a country of hungry english-speakers' (or something to that effect. That resonated a lot with me. You perhaps know better than me that international efforts to compare education (the exact name escapes me) are very contestable, and I'd say it may even be worth considering teaching kids how to use wikipedia and youtube wisely rather than all the years teaching them Newton or other science from 300 years ago. Teach them how a phone works!

As for the focus on quality, i totally agree, with the proviso that lay people will be involved significantly in judging whether a piece of scientific research has quality or not, in other words for the criterion of quality to not be purely internal to scientists - gone should be the days of blank cheques for blue-sky research which is of interest to nobody! Even abandon efforts to collect rocks from Mars in favour of treating poor people suffering from diarrhoea or make sure their eyes won't be defective ten years down the line because of yet unknown effects of spending two hours every day staring to a screen from less than 40 centimeters away (i'm pretty sure medical research like that doesn't exist for lack of long-term data).

Best Wishes,

Haris

Dear Mr. Rocco!

You made valid points to consider. Open science is not "open" enough as knowledge is considered a commodity to pay for. This is reflected in research collaborations:

Quote: "Open science is the science ahead. Open science in the digital era is ‘transparent and accessible knowledge that is shared and developed through collaborative networks’ (Vicente-Saez and Martinez-Fuentes 2018: 434)." in Ruben Vicente-Saez, Robin Gustafsson, Clara Martinez-Fuentes, Opening up science for a sustainable world: An expansive normative structure of open science in the digital era, Science and Public Policy, Volume 48, Issue 6, December 2021, Pages 799–813, https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scab049, Open access:

Article Opening up science for a sustainable world: An expansive nor...

Camilla Tetley, Susanne Koch, Narratives of research collaboration for sustainability at the global science-policy interface: A vehicle for inequality or transformation?, Environmental Science & Policy, Volume 155, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103708, Open access:

Article Narratives of research collaboration for sustainability at t...

Yours sincerely, Bulcsu Szekely