Let’s be FAIR! ALLEA presents recommendations for sustainable data sharing in the humanities

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A new ALLEA report provides key recommendations to make digital data in the humanities “Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable”, in line with the FAIR principles. The document is designed as a practical guide to help scholars, research funders, professionals and policymakers navigate the shift towards a sustainable data sharing culture.

In a digital world, the abundance of data offers new opportunities for all research fields, including the humanities, where the digitisation of texts, images, sounds, video recordings and other data types can significantly contribute to advancing research, while also transforming methodologies and scholarly communications.

But data requires management, and data management requires common guidelines for good implementation. In recent years, the FAIR principles have been widely adopted as best practice in data management for research and other professional fields. For instance, they are quickly gaining ground in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums, whose data collections hold crucial resources for scholars in the humanities.

Addressing these developments, the ALLEA report “Sustainable and FAIR Data Sharing in the Humanities” helps translate these principles into practice. It proposes technical, legal and ethical considerations to construct, store, preserve, disseminate and publish data in such a way that they can be retrieved, accessed, reused, and interoperable.

“To exploit the true potential of humanities scholarship, and to share and combine data across disciplines to address big challenges, we need an awareness and common understanding of the FAIR principles and the nuances of their implementation. It is clear from ongoing discussions in scholarly communication and through the development and rapid proliferation of the Open Science paradigm that the FAIR principles are having a sustained impact on research practice. To support scholars and institutions aiming to produce FAIR data, this report combines practical advice on how to align with the principles, with a focus on practical guidance from a humanities perspective. We hope they prove useful in the collective effort to move towards more a more open research landscape,” states Dr. Natalie Harrower, Chair of the ALLEA E-Humanities Working Group.

Data management lifecycle

Following the data management lifecycle, the report is structured in five stages: (1) identify, (2) plan, (3) collect/produce, structure & store, (4) deposit for preservation, cite & share, and (5) disseminate. For each phase, a set of practical recommendations and further reading are presented. The authors consider the differences among data sharing cultures across disciplines in the humanities but also encourage pathways towards interdisciplinary data practices.

Launch and Public Consultation

The publication was prepared by the ALLEA E-Humanities Working Group and builds upon the most recent developments in the FAIR and EU research policy landscape. A public consultation to seek feedback from researchers and practitioners was launched at ALLEA’s General Assembly, the annual meeting of European Academies, in May 2019. The working group received more than 200 suggestions, which were carefully considered and incorporated.

The report was launched at the 15th International Digital Curation Conference today. Follow the discussion at #ALLEAFAIR #IDCC20

ALLEA and Global Young Academy launch strategic partnership

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ALLEA and the Global Young Academy have started a strategic partnership to foster closer ties between the two organisations. The partnership, formalised in a Memorandum of Understanding, capitalises on the diverse expertise and experience of both organisations.

The Global Young Academy (GYA) gives a voice to young scientists around the world with 200 members from 57 countries, while ALLEA, as the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, represents more than 50 academies from over 40 countries in Europe. The partners seek to enhance knowledge exchange and establish a set of joint activities on topics of mutual interest at the interface between science, society and policy.

A first step in this cooperation seeks to strengthen cross-border collaboration between researchers from different age groups, disciplines and at different stages of their career paths. Building on and further consolidating existing forms of cooperation between ALLEA and GYA, the partnership kicks off with projects aimed at analysing and rethinking current research assessment models as well as scientific publication and peer-review practices.

Koen Vermeir, GYA Co-Chair:

The GYA aspires to empower young scientists in regional and global contexts. We see ALLEA as a natural partner for this mission and our collaboration will create new international platforms for intergenerational, interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue. We are excited to work together more closely in the coming years towards improving the science system and to promote our common values of scientific excellence and service to society.

Antonio Loprieno, ALLEA President:

Promoting science as a global and borderless public good and creating an inclusive, diverse research environment are among our key priorities. Through this partnership, we can further pursue these objectives and enhance the dialogue between researchers at various career stages. In ALLEA we look forward to working even more closely with our colleagues of the Global Young Academy in the future.”

One upcoming joint project develops around a public symposium ‘Research Assessments that Promote Progress in Scholarly Work and Strengthen the Contract with Society’ in the Academy Palace in Brussels on 16 June 2020. The event will focus on the future direction of research; values, incentives and rewards in scientific work; the notion of excellence; and the role of research assessment in scholarly work. To register and read more about the event click here.

ALLEA 2020 General Assembly: Registration is now open

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The UK member academies of ALLEA will host the next General Assembly in London on 3 and 4 June 2020. Registration to the event is now open.

On the occasion of the ALLEA General Assembly, a scientific symposium on “Research Collaboration in Changing Times” will take place on 4 June. In addition to the symposium, the event will feature the awarding of the 7th All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values and the annual business meeting of ALLEA’s membership. The ALLEA General Assembly will bring together representatives of academies of sciences and humanities from 40 countries across the Council of Europe region, leading researchers, policy-makers and civil society representatives.

The core deliberations of the scientific symposium will touch on research collaboration in times of major transformations and challenges for Europe. Discussions will be of particular importance to those concerned with ensuring and enabling high quality international research collaboration.  Among others, core questions will cover how Europe can strike a balance between excellence in research and the development of underfunded regions, and how research can contribute to solving major societal challenges.

These questions will be explored during the three sessions of the Symposium:

  • Protecting Collaborative Research in a Turbulent Europe
  • Balancing Excellence and Regional Equality within Europe
  • Interdisciplinary Research: The Key to the Future?

Detailed descriptions of the individual sessions and the programme are available on the website.

Register now

The scientific symposium is free to all participants.

Confirmed speakers:

  • Professor Ash Amin, British Academy, University of Cambridge
  • Professor Mauro Ferrari, President, European Research Council
  • Professor Ivana Gadjanski, University of Novi Sad
  • Professor Anet Rezek Jambrak, Global Young Academy, University of Zagreb
  • Professor Joyce Tait, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Centre for Social and Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics, University of Edinburgh
  • Professor Ulrike Tillmann, Royal Society, University of Oxford
  • Professor Koen Vermeir, Co-Chair, Global Young Academy, French National Centre for Scientific Research

Academic community calls for multidisciplinary approach to reduce health inequalities

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Inequalities in health may have different causes, yet the most persistent and man-made are linked to the social factor. Socio-economic position, education or access to healthcare are likely to have considerable impact on our physical and mental wellbeing, as they do on the susceptibility to diseases. So what can societies and especially lawmakers do to reduce the inequalities caused by these factors?

Around 200 researchers, civil society representatives, and members of the public discussed these and further questions at the “Social Inequalities in Health Symposium“. The event was organised by Académie nationale de médecine in partnership with ALLEA and FEAM, the Federation of European Academies of Medecine, and took place on 22 January 2020 in Paris.

‘Sadly, health inequalities in all European countries are increasing even though we know many of the causes. It was stressed at the symposium that with so much evidence at our disposal we need to act decisively and bring stakeholders from research, civil society, policy and the wider society together to develop policies concerning inequalities.‘, says Professor Graham Caie, Vice President of ALLEA, who chaired the session on health systems, education and mental health. ‘Medical, social and educational factors of health inequalities are closely interlineked and require a multidisciplinary approach. Our networks of academies can assist with finding the best experts to investigate this vitally important topic.’

The recent symposium in Paris followed a successful joint conference of ALLEA and FEAM in November 2019 in Brussels. This event looked further into exploring how vulnerable groups such as migrants often find themselves challenged for various reasons, from language barriers to adaptability of healthcare systems in receiving countries.

The following day, invited experts from across Europe and North America attended a workshop focusing on key methodologies of health inequalities research. This meeting emerged from a joint ALLEA-FEAM-KNAW (the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) project that seeks to synthesise the evidence-base and identify consensus among the various disciplines involved in the subject of health inequalities. A subsequent expert workshop will address causalities and socioeconomic inequalities in health will take place on 18 March in Berlin.

Conference report ‘Migration, Health and Medicine’ released

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The ALLEA-FEAM report of the conference ‘Migration, Health and Medicine’ is now available. The publication summarises the discussions of the event held in Brussels on 22 November 2019. It provides the basis for a scientifically sound analysis on migrant health and, among other topics, addresses the methods and strategies to collect valid and comparable data on this issue.

The conference was organised by ALLEA and the Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM), and hosted by the Royal Academies of Medicine of Belgium (ARMB and KAGB) in collaboration with the French Academy of Medicine (ANM).

Migrant health from a scientific perspective

Migrant health is determined by multiple factors, from socio-economic aspects of health to biological and environmental interactions influencing the health of migrant populations. However, the generalisation of research findings from one community or from one country to the regional or global levels faces considerable hurdles.

From the policy side in Europe, the complexity increases due to the various levels of governance at the EU. Whereas many aspects of migration and health can be dealt with an EU approach, the provision of healthcare services is managed by Member States.

The report seeks to inform policy debates on this pressing issue from a scientific perspective. It also underlines the need for academia, policymakers, civil society and international organisations to join forces to provide scientifically validated data on the health of refugees and migrants across Europe and the world.

Breakthrough prize opens public nominations for its 2021 prizes in fundamental physics, life sciences & mathematics

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New “Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize” for early-career women in math dedicated to the legacy of the late Iranian mathematician

The public nomination period for the 2021 Breakthrough Prizes in Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics is now open. Prizes will be awarded in late 2020, during a live, globally televised gala awards ceremony in Silicon Valley.

Nominations can be submitted online today through April 1, 2020. While self-nominations are prohibited, anyone may nominate another person. The nomination forms and rules are available at breakthroughprize.org.

For the ninth year, the Breakthrough Prize, recognized as the world’s largest science prize, will honor top scientists, handing out up to four prizes in Life Sciences, one in Fundamental Physics and one in Mathematics. Each prize comes with a $3 million award. Furthermore, up to six New Horizons Prizes, each for $100,000, will be presented to promising early-career researchers in the fields of Physics and Mathematics.

In addition, for the first time, nominations will be taken for the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize – an annual $50,000 award that will be presented to early-career women mathematicians who have completed their PhDs within the previous two years.

The Breakthrough Prize, dubbed ‘The Oscars of Science,’ hosts a gala awards ceremony to celebrate the laureates’ achievements and to foster broad popular support for scientific endeavors and inspire the next generation of scientists. As part of the schedule, the prizewinners also engage in a program of lectures and discussions at a daylong symposium after the ceremony.

For the fourth year, the Breakthrough Prize will partner with two prestigious institutions – the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA) and ResearchGate – to directly engage with researchers and the science community.

ALLEA brings together more than 50 academies from over 40 countries in Europe, with members leading scholarly enquiry across all fields of the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.

ResearchGate accesses a network of more than 16 million verified scientists from 193 countries and all fields of science and mathematics to connect and share their research – current and past. ResearchGate members are encouraged to nominate their peers for the 2021 prizes in Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences, and Mathematics.

The Breakthrough Prizes are sponsored by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Pony Ma, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki. Selection Committees are composed of previous Breakthrough Prize laureates, who select the winners from the list of candidates generated during the nomination period.

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

One 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics ($3 million) will recognize an individual(s) who has made profound contributions to human knowledge. It is open to all physicists – theoretical, mathematical and experimental – working on the deepest mysteries of the Universe. The prize can be shared among any number of scientists. Nominations are also open for the New Horizons in Physics Prize, which will include up to three $100,000 awards for early-career researchers who have already produced important work in their fields.

The Selection Committee for the 2021 physics prizes includes: Nima Arkani-Hamed, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Charles L. Bennett, Sheperd Doeleman, Lyn Evans, Michael B. Green, Alan Guth, Joseph Incandela, Takaaki Kajita, Charles Kane, Alexei Kitaev, Maxim Kontsevich, Andrei Linde, Arthur McDonald, Juan Maldacena, Eugene Mele, Lyman Page, Saul Perlmutter, Alexander Polyakov, Adam Riess, John H. Schwarz, Nathan Seiberg, Ashoke Sen, David N. Spergel, Andrew Strominger, Kip S. Thorne, Cumrun Vafa, Yifang Wang, Rainer Weiss and Edward Witten.

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences

Up to four 2021 Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences ($3 million each) will be awarded to individuals who have made transformative advances in understanding living systems and extending human life.

The Selection Committee for the 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences includes: C. David Allis, James P. Allison, Victor Ambros, Angelika Amon, Cornelia I. Bargmann, Alim Louis Benabid, C. Frank Bennett, David Botstein, Edward S. Boyden, Lewis C. Cantley, Emmanuelle Charpentier, Zhijian “James” Chen, Joanne Chory, Don W. Cleveland, Hans Clevers, Karl Deisseroth, Titia de Lange, Mahlon R. DeLong, Jennifer A. Doudna, Stephen J. Elledge, Napoleone Ferrara, Jeffrey M. Friedman, Michael N. Hall, John Hardy, F. Ulrich Hartl, Helen Hobbs, Arthur L. Horwich, David Julius, Adrian Krainer, Eric S. Lander, Robert Langer, Virginia Man-Yee Lee, Richard P. Lifton, Kazutoshi Mori, Kim Nasmyth, Harry F. Noller, Roeland Nusse, Yoshinori Ohsumi, Svante Pääbo, Gary Ruvkun, Charles L. Sawyers, Alexander Varshavsky, Bert Vogelstein, Peter Walter, Robert A. Weinberg, Shinya Yamanaka, Xiaowei Zhuang and Huda Zoghbi.

Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics

One 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics ($3 million) will be awarded to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the field of mathematics. Nominations are also open for the New Horizons in Mathematics Prize, which will include up to three $100,000 awards for early-career researchers who have already produced important work in their fields. In addition, one $50,000 Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize will be awarded. This prize can be shared among one or more mathematicians.

The Selection Committee for the 2021 math prizes includes: Ian Agol, Alex Eskin, Simon Donaldson, Maxim Kontsevich, Christopher Hacon, Vincent Lafforgue, Jacob Lurie, James McKernan, Terence Tao and Richard Taylor.

Information on the Breakthrough Prizes is available at breakthroughprize.org.

Understanding public discourse and trust in a digital society

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In a context where citizens struggle to distinguish facts from fabricated claims online, scientists, policymakers and media face similar dilemmas. The digital revolution is disrupting the norms and mechanisms of the public debate where they participate and of the public trust that they need to operate. A new report published by ALLEA and Re-Imagine Europa examines this changing communications environment and its effects on Europe’s value-system and democracy.

The report compiles the key takeaways of the conference ‘Democracy in a Digital Society: Trust, Evidence ad Public Discourse in a Changing Media Environment’ hosted by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Berlin on 24 January 2019.

The forum brought together academic knowledge, media expertise and policy experience in a series of multi-stakeholder panels and workshops. The report collects the insights of these discussions, including contributions from the now European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Mariya Gabriel and the President of Re-Imagine Europa and former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

Taming the digital revolution?

The starting point of the report is a call for identifying the opportunities and threats of the third revolution of communications technologies. From a historical perspective, the stakes are high. “While it took two-thousand years to tame writing, it only took two-hundred years to tame printing, resulting in the flourishing of the Enlightenment”, warns ALLEA President Antonio Loprieno.

“New technologies have repeatedly disrupted established cultures of communication. It took two-and-a-half centuries to get the culture of copyright, the laws of defamation, the conceptions of intellectual property, that reconciled – to some extent – what was done by the arrival of printing”, adds Philosopher Onora O’Neill, Fellow of the British Academy and Co-chair of the ALLEA Working Group Truth, Trust and Expertise.

Against this background, the report explores the political distress that digital disinformation and artificial intelligence may be able to inflict on European values and democracy. Commissioner Gabriel argues for “a digital future where core European values, such as freedom of expression, privacy, democracy and data protection, are fully respected”.

The reconciliation of European values with technological change is a recurring issue in this conversation. New institutions and a rethinking of our legal framework are needed to ensure that online data-based business models thrive for the benefit of society, experts agree. From a media perspective, some first principles to enable a healthy public discourse are proposed by Christophe Leclercq, Executive Chairman at the Euractiv Foundation: “Avoid censors. Dilute fake news. Promote quality content”.

Next steps

This report closes the final stage of the ALLEA Working Group Truth, Trust and Expertise, whose findings were also explored in three discussion papers: ‘Loss of Trust in Expertise? Loss of Trustworthiness? Truth and Expertise Today‘, ‘Trust Within Science: Dynamics and Norms of Knowledge Production’ and ‘Trust in Science and Changing Communication Landscapes’.

To continue this programme of action, ALLEA is now involved in the international research project PEriTiA (Policy, Expertise and Trust in Action). Funded by the EU research and innovation programme Horizon 2020, the project investigates the conditions under which citizens trust or distrust expertise used for public policy.

 

Picture credit: Elijah O’ Donnell

Academies’ event on migrant health: European Commission promises to keep migration high on its agenda

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On 22 November, numerous academics and experts discussed the health status of migrants in Europe and new challenges to healthcare systems posed by the recent influx of newcomers. The conference organised by ALLEA and the Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM) saw active participation of academics, practitioners, policymakers and NGOs.

While contributions during all sessions caught the interest of the audience, the speech of John F. Ryan, Director of the Public health, Country Knowledge, Crisis Management Unit at the European Commission’s Directorate for Health and Food Safety received special attention. He confirmed that more funds would be mobilised to address the rise of migratory pressure in Europe and the health status of migrants and refugees.

Likewise, the session chaired by ALLEA Vice-President Professor Graham Caie was successful in stimulating a lively debate as the interactions went on between panellists and the audience. The speakers discussed research confirming that migrants are less likely to bring diseases from their places of departure and that in certain aspects migrant populations tend to be in good physical condition. However, they stressed that people on the move often face mental health challenges as they embark on a long and risky journey to Europe. Upon arrival, they additionally experience barriers that make access to healthcare systems difficult.

The event took place in Brussels and was hosted by the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium (ARMB) in collaboration with the French Academy of Medicine.

While the conference considerations and outcomes will be summarised in a conference report, which will be published early 2020, more related discussions can be expected at ALLEA upcoming events:

 

Unite to defend evidence-informed policy, science advice community tells European Commission

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Politicians, scientists and civil society need to defend evidence-informed policy as a cornerstone of liberal democracy.

This was the key message to the new European Commission, as voted by Europe’s science advice community at a major event in Helsinki on The Future of Science Advice in Europe.

Some 150 of Europe’s science advisors, government officials, researchers, politicians, academy representatives and members of the public met on 13 November to discuss the future of science advice and the role of scientific evidence in good governance.

The event was hosted by the Office of the Prime Minister of Finland, in the wider context of the current Finnish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and co-organised by one of ALLEA’s flagship projects: Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA), together with the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters and the Academy of Finland. As one of SAPEA’s five networks, ALLEA leads the work package on communications, which managed this notable event.

Read more on SAPEA website.

 

The potential and challenges of genome editing for crop improvement lively discussed in Brussels

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The science behind genome editing, its regulation and its impact on society– those were only few of the topics discussed on 7 and 8 November at the Academy Palace in Brussels. The symposium ‘Genome Editing for Crop Improvement’, organised by ALLEA and the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB) brought together eminent speakers and stakeholders to discuss how to harness the benefits of genome editing while ensuring a wide-spread acceptance of the new technology in society.

The symposium provided a holistic overview with a variety of different backgrounds, a comprehensive overview of scientific evidence on safety of the genome edited crops and their potential for solving current and future problems in agriculture. It further addressed issues relating to intellectual property and the desirability of amending current European legislation on genome-edited plants.

A document synthesising the discussions from the symposium will be published in due course.