Open Science

Openness is an inherent part of science. Access to proven knowledge and up-to-date information determines the quality, content and connectivity of knowledge and innovation. Digitisation offers science new opportunities in dealing with knowledge and information. New methods of exchanging publications, research data, programme code and teaching materials across institutional, geographical and subject-specific boundaries have found their way into research and teaching on the basis of the Internet.

Open science is thus a generic term for various currents that aim to make science more easily accessible to a larger number of people. Whether publications, data, program code or teaching materials - researchers worldwide have begun to make scientific information freely accessible on the Web under the attribute Open and terms such as Open Data, Open Source, Open Methodology, Open Peer Review and Open Access. This development is taking place at different speeds and in different ways in the scientific communities. Depending on the discipline, various challenges and subject-specific questions have to be taken into account and clarified when opening up scientific information.

One of the central challenges of Open Science is to enable the long-term use of scientific procedures and findings in new contexts. To this end, legal, technical and cultural framework conditions must be taken into account. Publications, methods and other objects of the research process must be opened up in such a way that they are transparent, comprehensible and reusable. Open Science promotes the development of business and society through the manifold possibilities for dealing with scientific findings.