Open Science

The growing relevance of Open Science and its many branches (open publication schemes, appearance of open research data, open source, reproducibility, public value, etc.) poses a challenge, and maybe a turning point, to current academic and research practices. Open Science proposals driven by researchers and academics are gathering considerable traction. At the same time, institutions at all levels (from single organisations to supra-national entities) are launching and actively supporting very ambitious plans to implement the very broad idea of Open Science, sometimes focusing on specific pillars. This brings up a series of challenging questions, some of which directly impact the strategic decisions to be made by research institutions:

• What is the landscape of Open Science initiatives?
• Why embrace (or not) Open Science initiatives?
• How does Open Science impact existing standards for research career evaluation and dissemination? Are all countries' institutions equally affected? How are they responding?
• How to make sense of the separate, diverse proposals that are being made by different communities pushing Open Science-related proposals?

Informatics Europe, representing members across Europe, must address this trend, especially as Informatics is both a key driver and a major beneficiary of Open Science.

IE Open Science Working Group

As part of its mission to provide unbiased information and to bring diverse opinions together, Informatics Europe formed an Open Science Working Group in 2021, aiming to clarify the main actors and trends behind Open Science. This Working Group inherits ideas and aims from the Leaders Workshop session that took place during ECSS 2021 in Madrid, and where some very interesting opinions were presented. Following initial discussions about Open Science and Data Research Management, Open Access, Conference Maturity Model, Open Code Repositories and Open Citations, the WG currently focuses on:

• Assessing Software Development Activities of Researchers
• OS Programming Languages Teaching in Universities
• Promoting OSS Best Practices (including OSPOs)

A dedicated workshop with the main theme of "Open Science in Informatics: Strategic Issues in Research, Teaching & Infrastructures" will be held at ECSS 2026 in Porto, Portugal.

If you wish to contribute to the above task forces/activities or have a new idea related to Open Science that we haven't covered yet, register to join here.

• Working Group
• Outcomes

• Current members: 

  • Boris Baldassari, Eclipse Foundation (Chair)
  • Lenuta Alboaie, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania
  • Étienne André, Loria/Université de Lorraine, France
  • Marco Antoniotti, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
  • Lucas Berg, University of Namur, Belgium 
  • Stefano Bistarelli, University of Perugia, Italy
  • Ioannis Chatzigiannakis, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
  • Davide Chicco, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
  • Benoit Combemale, University of Rennes, France
  • Oscar Corcho, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
  • Alessandro Crimi, AGH University of Krakow
  • Roberto Di Cosmo, Software Heritage / Inria, France
  • Antinisca Di Marco, University of L'Aquila, Italy
  • Pedro Diniz, University of Porto, Portugal 
  • Gregor Engels, Paderborn University, Germany
  • Daniel Garijo, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
  • Carlo Ghezzi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
  • Michael Goedicke, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
  • Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
  • Francisco Iniesto, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain
  • Paul Irofti, University of Bucharest, Romania
  • Jean-Marc Jézéquel, Université de Rennes, France
  • Kaido Kikkas, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
  • Gabriele Lenzini, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
  • Jose Manrique Lopez de la Fuente, Eclipse Foundation
  • Ugo Lopez, Università degli studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Italy
  • Ernestina Menasalvas, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain
  • Cynthia Papon Rousselle, SVIA SSIE SSII Schweiz - Verein für Informatik in der Ausbildung, Switzerland
  • Rafael Penaloza Nyssen, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
  • Silvio Peroni, University of Bologna, Italy
  • Alfonso Pierantonio, Università degli Studi dell'Aquila, Italy
  • Horia F. Pop, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania
  • Laurent Romary, Inria, France
  • Máté Tejfel, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary
  • Antonio Vallecillo, SCIE / Universidad de Malaga, Spain
  • Andrzej Wasowski, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Ernst Wit, Universita della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland

  Past Chairs:

  • Manuel Carro, Technical University of Madrid / IMDEA Software Institute

   

   

• Open Petition

  • Open Citations Letter
    A petition for comprehensive coverage of citations in our discipline.

  Workshops & Publications

  • ECSS 2025: "Open Science and Open Source" Workshop
    Read More
    Date: October 2025 
    Details: Workshop description and presentation slides from the ECSS 2025 workshop, held in Rennes on 29 October 2025.
    
    
  • ECSS 2023: "Open Science and Research Assessment" session of the National Informatics Associations Workshop
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    Date: October 2023 
    Details: Session description and presentation slides from the ECSS 2023 workshop, held in Edinburgh on 25 October 2023.
    
    
  • "Open Access: Status and Recommendations" Report
    Download 
    Date: May 2023 
    Details: A report summarising the evolution of scientific publication models towards providing open access to research results and making recommendations from an academic standpoint on future action paths. This document has been endorsed by the National Informatics Associations that are members of Informatics Europe at the time of publishing it.
    
    
  • ECSS 2022: National Informatics Associations Workshop on "Open Science and the Future of Research Dissemination in Informatics" 
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    Date: October 2022 
    Details: Session description and presentation slides from the ECSS 2022 workshop, held in Hamburg on 26 October 2022.
    
    
  • ECSS 2021 Leaders Workshop on "Open Science and its Impact on Research and Career Development" 
    Read More
    Date: October 2021 
    Details: Session description and presentation slides from the ECSS 2021 workshop, held in Madrid on 25 October 2021. The workshop talks can be found on our YouTube Channel here.