News

Published

Dec 1, 2020

Author

Ilaria Fava

Open Science as a cornerstone of the Sustainable Development Goals: OpenAIRE contributes to '2030 Connect'

Dec 1, 2020

On the 15 July 2020, the UN Inter-agency Task Team on STI for the SDGs launched the Online Technology Platform – 2030 Connect, an online platform which promotes science technology and innovation for sustainable development.

The UN’s SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) are the UN’s approach to address the global challenges that humanity faces. Supporting these 17 Goals, Open Science is a key cross-cutting contributing factor, supported by developments in Science Technology and Innovation (STI) and the importance that immediate access to international research outputs is available for all.

As these critical human challenges are developed and solutions discovered, the UN needs a way to advance progress and gather output of each of the SDG programmes. For this reason, they have launched the UN Connect 2030 Platform which will serve as a gateway for information on STIs in and beyond the UN, including access to open access publications.

OpenAIRE is delighted to be involved in this initiative, with the support of the EC’s DG Connect.

Open Science Accelerates knowledge around Development issues	How is OpenAIRE contributing to the platform?
This is the beginning of a global effort with open science in its core and OpenAIRE has committed to support it. It also signals recognition of OS as a vital part of the role in furthering knowledge within these 17 SDG domains. The platform has now moved beyond the demo version and connects not just to technology databases but also to open access knowledge resources, proven low-cost innovations for the SDGs and technology solutions for COVID-19. Development to date has been possible through extra-budgetary resources mobilized through a project on ‘Mobilizing STI in developing countries for the SDGs’, funded from the ‘2030 Agenda subfund of the Peace and Development Trust Fund.’	OpenAIRE is one of the content providers for this new platform, providing scholarly communication and scientific data and most importantly access to fully open publications to further develop knowledge in these research areas. The OpenAIRE Research Graph will be delivering access to a vast collection of high-quality data including open access publications, research data, research entities and links to relevant projects and communities.
Next Steps	Importance of collaboration
OpenAIRE has started some preliminary work to classify research results to SDGs, to help in broader monitoring and implementation of our monitoring dashboards and plans to see how to best connect to other sources in the platform. This analyses and identification is suited to the needs of 2030 Connect and reflects the importance of gathering relevant content into one place according to the context. More discovery mechanisms via Artificial Intelligence will also be developed. Watch this space!	OpenAIRE recently published its response to UNESCO’s Open Science consultation, which, among other issues, highlights the importance of collaboration on international solutions to share research outputs at a global level and to align infrastructures to solve a fragmented landscape of infrastructures, repositories and policies.