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This workshop aimed to advance implementation of the recommendations published in Science Europe’s Survey Report ‘Research Integrity Practices in Science Europe Member Organisations.’ The workshop explored the challenges in taking forward certain recommendations through the discussion of case studies presented by organisations that have already tackled some of the more difficult issues.

Citizen science is a growing movement that enlists the public in scientific discovery, monitoring, and experimentation across a wide range of disciplines. This briefing paper looks in detail at the evolution of citizen science and citizen science policy, provides examples of initiatives from around the world, and considers the future of the activity.

This joint briefing paper with Knowledge Exchange informs the discussion on the funding of Research Data Management (RDM) and related infrastructures in Europe, helps raise awareness of the current challenges, and communicates opportunities for co-ordinated action to relevant stakeholders. The paper highlights that the funding of Research Data Infrastructures, enabling RDM, comes from a great variety of sources and institutions that have different responsibilities and that operate at local, national, and international levels.

Decisive action is needed to transition towards more effectively and efficiently towards an Open Access publishing system. This paper presents some of the recent trends and developments in the transition to Open Access, as well as various business models currently in use which aim to facilitate this transition. It also highlights expected benefits and underlines remaining challenges.

So far, much of the focus of the transition towards Open Access has been on scholarly and scientific articles. However, a significant number of disciplines, notably – but not only – within the Social Sciences, the Arts, and the Humanities produce and heavily use books. This briefing paper identifies the key issues at stake in implementing a policy of Open Access to academic books, and outlines recommendations for different stakeholder groups to facilitate and accelerate such a policy.

This briefing paper looks at developments in efforts to address issues of research integrity. It explores the available data on the frequency of misconduct, why it is thought that researchers would commit misconduct in the first place, how national and international organisations have approached the promotion of research integrity, and the manner in which allegations of misconduct are handled.

Text and Data Mining (TDM) helps the analysis and extraction of new insights and knowledge from vast amount of digitally-available content. It offers great potential for research, but also for the economy and society as a whole since it enables innovation. This paper gives an overview of some of the legal hurdles faced by researchers using TDM practices, flags possible action lines for research organisations, and calls for a more science-friendly EU copyright law.

Fundamental science and curiosity-driven research are key drivers of change for their intrinsic value and long-term unexpected impact. However, many other aspects are also important such as challenge oriented research and co-creation of knowledge. This report captures key discussions from Science Europe’s first Symposium on impact and includes four case studies illustrating the unexpected impact of research on subjects ranging from privacy to nano-encapsulation.

Scientific research increasingly relies on large collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and interdisciplinary research teams – often working across borders and across sectors – to address big societal questions. This report considers how research organisations can best support collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and interdisciplinary research teams. It also considers how can they allocate appropriate credit for research input and better evaluate multidisciplinary research.

‘Big Deals’ are one of the dominant but highly-disputed business models in academic publishing. The model needs to be further analysed before it can be used as an instrument to implement and increase Open Access. This workshop was as organised to trigger further expert discussions on the current business models and consider the available alternatives.

This report explores the challenges facing research funding and performing organisations to design and manage balanced Research Infrastructure (RI) portfolios and design effective cross-border collaborations when setting up and running joint RIs. Discussions with a broad range of stakeholders took place at a dedicated workshop co-hosted by Science Foundation Ireland and the Health Research Board.

This paper highlights the benefits of collaboration between researchers and business persons, policy makers, or activists towards a shared societal goal.

Science Europe supports some of the conclusions adopted today by the EU Competitiveness Council, but is disappointed by the lack of ambition in others. The conclusions reflect the Council position on the preparation of the ninth Framework Programme (FP) for Research and Development.

This open letter issued by the international research community calls on Members of the European Parliament to halt the adoption of harmful provisions found in the current draft of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, which could threaten Open Access and Open Science.

The overall funding for research and innovation in Europe needs to be increased and an adequate ring-fenced budget should be provided for Horizon Europe. In this factsheet Science Europe illustrates some of the reasons why.

The European Commission proposal for Horizon Europe falls short of acknowledging the importance of fundamental research. This factsheet demonstrates the essential role fundamental research plays, not only for research, but also for innovation.

Science Europe expresses strong concern that the research funding budget be maximised in Horizon 2020 so that Europe can fully realise its target of becoming a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. Funding for research and innovation in Europe is a critical strategic investment which is essential for Europe’s long-term growth and prosperity.

Research organisations and funders increasingly ask researchers to create Data Management Plans for their work and proposals. A lack of standardisation means that these can be time-consuming to create and difficult to compare and evaluate. Science Europe presents a framework for the creation of domain-specific protocols that can be used as standardised templates, reducing the administrative burden on both researchers, research organisations, and funders.

This report – which consolidates the outcomes of a two day workshop co-hosted with the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in November 2015 – identifies and acknowledges the challenges in transforming big data into better health and makes a number of key recommendations.

Does your organisation want to develop requirements for data management plans (DMPs) or update existing ones?

Take a look at our latest publication to find out how to do so in three steps.

The 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement) of animals in research is a key topic for all researchers. This paper covers topics such as barriers and misconceptions that impede implementation of the 3Rs, tools to support the better design of experiments, and examples of how new technological and scientific approaches may contribute to the 3Rs.

When we think about energy, we consider it in terms of quantity. However, in a resource-constrained world, energy and in particular its efficiency, must also be appreciated from the point of view of quality, which is its ability to do work. In order to include the quality and not just the quantity of energy, we need to measure ‘exergy’. This brochure introduces the concept of exergy and provides examples of its application.

Improving the world’s resilience to future impacts of global environmental change is of utmost importance. This brochure outlines strategies on different areas such as health, food, security, and biodiversity and underlines the importance of conserving the planet’s natural resources while adapting to various effects of climate change.

Intersectoral mobility of researchers is gaining political momentum in Europe, with more interest in bringing in the competences that characterise researchers into public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. This survey report looks at the diversity of measures that are in place within Science Europe Member Organisations to enable researchers to be more mobile across different sectors of employment

Protecting the use of animals for scientific purposes is of utmost importance. Over 240 leading biomedical research organisations, learned societies, industry representatives, universities and patient groups in Europe release this joint statement in support of the Directive 2010/63/EU which outlines the protection of the use of animals for scientific purposes.