The first EOSC Tripartite Event was held in Hungary
The event was opened by the Vice President of the NRDI Office, Dr. István Szabó, who shared insight about the importance of Open Science in the aspect of research funders. He drew the attention of the audience to the European paradox, that some countries are strong in innovation, some are better in R&D. The goal of the EU is to bring innovation and R&D closer to each other in member countries by 2030. For this purpose, the NRDI Office implemented a three-pillar Smart Specialization Strategy between 2021 and 2027, which involves the National Digitalization Strategy, the National RDI Strategy, and the National SME Strategy as well. He highlighted in his presentation that to truly make a change, initiatives for science in Hungary, that perform research will have an essential role, since they are close to universities and important for innovation. The NRDI Office supports the national Open Science ecosystem with the following activities: funded the National Advisory Board, established a National Open Science White Paper, joined the EOSC Association, and continuously enforces the OS principles in research and innovation.
The second speaker of the event was Pantelis Tziveloglou, representing the EC. In his online presentation he drew focus to the role of EOSC in the European Open Science strategy, then he spoke about the current situation of research data management practices among researchers. According to a recent survey, 60% of researchers still store their research data locally, instead of data repositories, where re-use and sharing could be easily provided, besides data protection. 1/3 of the respondents have never heard of FAIR. ¾ of the respondents creates data management plans regularly but doesn't follow FAIR guidelines. Time, effort, finance legal restrictions for data ad lack of recognition by scientists in engaging in OS practices seem to be the biggest obstacles. One of the EC's priorities is to deepen a truly functioning internal market for knowledge. In the future, EC priorities will include the positioning of EOSC in the next ERA Policy Agenda 2027-2027, demonstrating the added value of EOSC, fostering high productivity of FAIR data, and aligning policies, investments and practices from European to institutional levels.
Volker Beckmann, from the EOSC Steering Board presented the point of view of the EU member states. Adopting digital practices is a necessity in science and the FAIR guidelines help scientists to do so. We are living in the Digital Decade, which was enforced by the pandemic, but modern methods and the concentration of resources may drive science forward. Among supporting activities he mentioned the implementation of the EOSC Observatory. The stakeholders of EOSC have been identified and EC invested a serious amount in its development. Member states expressed their commitments in support of Open Science and EOSC. Members states must avoid double-investments, therefore we need synergy and services and partners have to be aligned. For different research communities EOSC means something different, benefits should be clearly identified for each. It seems like EOSC is here to stay, the discussion will be continued.
The fourth speaker of the morning session was Ute Gusenheimer, representing the EOSC Association. She started introducing the early days of the EOSC Association, which was established in 2020 to provide a single voice for the advocacy and representation of the broader EOSC community (1), to promote the alignment of the European Union research policy and priorities with activities coordinated by the Association (2), and to enable seamless access to data through interoperable services that address the entire research data life cycle (3). Currently the organization counts 168 members, the Hungarian mandated organization is KIFÜ. She then introduced the work of the TaskForces, and finished her presentation with some future outlook for 2027.
The last speaker of the morning session was János Mohácsi, who introduced the Open Science activities of KIFÜ. As mandated organization of the EOSC Association, the role of KIFÜ is to be in contact with relevant stakeholders and to represent national interests. Also, it has to provide a flow of communication between national stakeholders and EOSC-A. He then ended his presentation with a summary of the Open Science workshops KIFÜ delivered last autumn in Hungarian Higher Education Institutions.
The topic of the first panel discussion in the afternoon was chosen to be "Research Infrastructures in support of Open Science and FAIR data". OpenAIRE was represented in the discussion by Judit Fazekas-Paragh, Hungarian OpenAIRE NOAD. Allen Weeks, General Director of ELI, Dr. Gábor Palkó from DAIRAH/DH-LAB, Dr. Róbert Lovas from the ELKH Cloud, and Dr. Miklós Bán from OpenBioMaps also participated in the discussion. Speakers shared learning outcomes of the pandemic regarding their work in science: remote work became popular in research and surprisingly it made scientific processes even more complex than before. It is known that Gen Z prefers convenience in the workplace besides flexibility, and it is true for young scientists as well. The first panel ended with speakers sharing their insights on the Hungarian White Paper on Open Science, and the topic of long term data preservation also came up. Lack of human resources mean a bigger issue in this question that the matter of storage.
The last section of Hungary's first Tripartite Event was a panel discussion lead by Ute Gusenheimer, about implementing OS policies in the funders' and institutions' point of view. Pantelis Tziveloglou (EC), Dr. István Szabó (NRDI Office), Dóra Gaálné Kalydy (EISZ), and Dr. Imola Wilhem (Hungarian Young Academy) participated in the second panel. All of them shared the challenges of implementing OS practices in the relevant groups: for researchers, administrative tasks are considered obstacles, while for funders, the bigger issues are money related, and it is a challenge to communicate Open Science activities. Adopting policies on the national level is an indisputable necessity but translations are simply not enough, these policies need to be aligned to national interests. It has been highlighted that Open Science is more than publishing articles through transformative agreements and for-profit publishing houses. The second panel discussion initiated an active participation from the audience, many attendees shared their opinion regarding the topic.
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