EN100-web

Keynote
e-Infrastructures
Enabling trust in the Era
of Data-Intensive Science
The World Wide Web is a global communication platform
transforming research and education. The data-driven paradigm,
although in different contexts, affects all fields of science.
New scientific methods are emerging supported by
unprecedented ability to move data around and the capacity
to process them even in extreme large volumes . Trust in the
scientific enterprise builds on evidence-based methods and
mechanisms of peer review and scrutiny. This has been
working well for centuries involving more or less homogeneous
groups of scientists. But if trust is a fundamental and
time invariant value of science, it has to scale in order to preserve
it in a hyper connected world. It has to take into
account multidisciplinary approaches, citizens’ growing scientific
literacy and their engagement in science. The Web
obliges us to reflect and put in place a framework for webs of
trust. In order to scale, a trust-enabling framework has to get
the acceptance of the wider research communities, incorporating
incentives to push further frontiers of knowledge. It
has to promote a culture of transparency supporting reproducibility
of experiments for well-founded review. It should
take into account established good practices and traditions
which differ across scientific communities. The European
Commission (EC) has been working on a framework of open
science addressing in particular the impact from data, computing
and networking infrastructures. Important steps were
taken when launching Horizon 2020.
Open Science
As proposed in the “Open Science for the 21st century” declaration
, open science can be unfolded in three components:
open cultures, open content and open infrastructures. From
the perspective of trust building, open science envisages
optimal sharing of research data and also publications, software,
and educational resources. The potential to mash-up,
and to re-use research datasets will not only enable accurate
scrutiny but will also reveal unexpected relationships and
will trigger new findings. The European Commission is
engaged to ensure an open access framework for publications
stemming from EU-funded research and is progressively
opening access to the research data (the basis for
Horizon 2020). The EC is asking funding bodies in EU
Member States to do the same.
Open infrastructures and the Research Data Alliance
(RDA)
e-infrastructures are key components of the open science
framework. They support advanced science and enable
online research collaboration across disciplines at global
level. They have the potential to structure the global knowledge
space, increase scope, depth and economies of scale of
the scientific enterprise. And, not least, they bridge the gap
between scientists and the citizen and are enablers of trust in
the scientific process. Data is a basic element of e-infrastructures.
It has always been so but even more now at the dawn
of “data-driven science” when e-infrastructures become a
great opportunity for widening the participatory nature of
Carlos Morais Pires,
Scientific Officer at the
European Commission,
Excellence in Science
DG/CONNECT.
Carlos Morais Pires,
coordinates the area of
“Scientific Data
e-Infrastructures” at the
European Commission,
DG CONNECT.
science. The Riding the Wave and the Data Harvest reports
highlight the strategic importance for Europe to support
interoperability of research data infrastructures. They also
point strongly at the need to support cost-effective research
data management and the emergence of a computing literate
generation of researchers in all fields of science. The
European Commission is supporting the development of a
pan-European multi-disciplinary data infrastructure through
Horizon 2020 and policy developments centred on openness
and interoperability. The global Research Data Alliance will
support the EC strategy to achieve global scientific data
interoperability in a way that real actors (users and producers
of data, service providers, network and computing infrastructures,
researchers and their organisations) are in the
driving seat. Investments in digital infrastructure are needed
to ensure that Europe remains a central hub for research and
innovation, offering the best infrastructure to the brightest
minds in the world.
Final remarks
Universality of science requires trusted and equitable access
across all economic and social sectors. An open science
framework will help fostering transparency and integrity and
therefore trust in the scientific enterprise. An open
science/open e-infrastructure framework should preserve the
incentives of scientific discovery and the need to share and
trust in order to collaborate across disciplinary and geographical
boundaries, and also to develop the infrastructure
capacity to support innovation. All stakeholders of the science,
education and innovation “ecosystem” should promote
practical applications of open science principles. For an open
science framework to emerge the active contribution of
many different players is necessary: from policy makers and
funders to the individual researcher and ultimately to the
engaged citizen. It requires a strong coordination effort at
European and global levels and the promotion of global
interoperability of data infrastructures through communityled
initiatives such as the Research Data Alliance.
Carlos Morais Pires
Links:
Riding the Wave Report: http://kwz.me/Df
Data Harvest report: http://kwz.me/Dj
Research Data Alliance: https://rd-alliance.org/
Science as an open enterprise, The Royal Society Science
Policy Centre, June 2012: http://kwz.me/Dq
Open Science Declaration: http://kwz.me/Dv
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ERCIM NEWS 100 January 2015