WTMC PhD Workshop “Open”, 18-20 November 2019
Conference centre Soeterbeeck, Deursen-Dennenburg, the Netherlands
In this workshop, we will consider the more or less recent quest to make science more ‘open’. While a lot of attention tends to be directed at openness in relation to scientific output (mainly publications) and related potential benefits, there have also been critiques of the open movement and the restrictions and hierarchies it tends to reproduce. Upon closer examination, it also becomes clear that many aspects of scientific practice are the focus of efforts to ‘open’ up, and that practices such as lab work, hypothesis formulation as well as more overarching activities like agenda-setting are also being reconceived as open and articulated around digital platforms (‘Open Science Framework’, ‘Open Notebook Science’, ‘AsPredicted’). Other scholarly activities such as teaching and learning have also been interpolated by open agendas (‘Public Knowledge Project”, MOOCs) with sometimes contradictory shifts in property regimes.
While open science is associated with diverse reformatory agendas that aim to increase democratization, rigour, or public values in over-commercialized settings, there are important questions to be asked from a science and technology perspective. How is science changing? How does open science intersect with existing mechanisms to steer science and inform science and technology policy? What is the relative importance of universal access as a value that underpins the open movement, and to what extent is it being realised? What are the implications of such a value being embedded in all kinds of practices and requirements for scientific research? Is this in tension with the STS commitment to understanding knowledge as situated and context-dependent? Who are the actors spearheading open initiatives? What is the role of technology is shaping the ‘open’ agenda?
Guest lecturers: Frank Miedema (UMC Utrecht), Paul Wouters (Leiden University), Ismael Rafols (Leiden University, Ingenio and SPRU)
The registration form for this workshop is now available here.
Please register by 4 October 2019!
Costs for WTMC members: meals 10 EUR /day.
Costs for everyone else: 695 EUR, including fee, accommodation and meals.
If you have any content-related questions regarding this workshop, please feel free to contact the training coordinators Anne Beaulieu: [email protected] or Bernike Pasveer: [email protected]
For practical questions please contact Elize Schiweck: [email protected]
