3rd UN Open Science Conference

From 8 to 10 February 2023, the 3rd UN Open Science Conference, organised by the the Dag Hammarskjöld Library of the United Nations Department of Global Communications in collaboration with the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division of Sustainable Development Goals, and UNESCO’s Division of Science Policy and Capacity-Building,  will bring together policymakers, representatives of intergovernmental organisations, researchers, scholars, librarians, publishers and civil society. The conference, which will take place both online and on-site, will focus on the theme Accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals, Democratizing the Record of Science,  facilitating a dialogue about the opportunities and challenges of practicing open science and explore initiatives, themes and perspectives into the open scientific method and the digital scholarly communications cycle.

Professor Bernt Hugenholtz, Professor Emeritus of Intellectual Property Law, University of Amsterdam, and member of the ALLEA Permanent Working Group Intellectual Property Rights, will be on the panel discussing the reform of scientific publishing on 10 February. The discussion will centre around rewriting the current rules of the market which prioritise profit over scientific rigour and maintaining heirarchies, and thereby cultivate a distorted measure of research excellence. The panel will debate how to counter the increasing commercialisation of information access and user data, and relatedly, how to reinvigorate the public’s trust in science by making credible and authoritative scientific information more accessible.

Panels on strengthening the science-policy-society interface and equity in open scholarship will complement this discussion.

Conference registrants will be able to participate in these discussions about the present and future of open science practices for the SDGs and reaffirm that scientific progress and its applications are for the benefit of all.