Openness and dialogue are needed to preserve science as a public good
15.11.2022
Celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) continued in Brussels on 10 November with a deep dive into the concept of science as a global public good. The issue was debated by a select audience of university leaders, academics, policymakers and other members of the research community, taking their lead from a landmark paper on the subject written by Professor Geoffrey Boulton of the University of Edinburgh for the International Science Council.
Professor Boulton started the discussion, revisiting the conclusions of his 2021 paper and expanding on some of their current implications.
“It’s my belief that the concept of science as a global public good is both a proper description of the scientific enterprise, and a practical guide to action in many domains,” he stated.
And in order to have the greatest public good from science, it must be available to all.
“Openness is proven to be the most efficient way of ensuring that scientific knowledge is a public good, and the Open Science movement is a means of ensuring this,” he said.
He went on to criticise institutions that put limits on this openness, from the publishing industry to governments.
“The commercial science publishing industry effectively appropriates the public good potential of much science, for premature private profit,” he said.
This occurs both through the constraints publishers put on access to research results, and the stranglehold publication and citation of papers has on researcher assessment and career development.
“Its consequences are to undermine science as a public good, to discriminate against poorer parts of the global scientific community, to inhibit access to scientific results, to slow down scientific communication and to inhibit scientific functionality and the potential for digitalisation.”
He also criticised the restrictions that governments increasingly place on scientific collaboration, on the grounds of national security or self-interest.
“The increased withdrawal into national silos that we currently experience should be counteracted by an expansion of scientific interaction globally, not a contraction.”
Prof. Geoffrey Boulton
The need for science in Europe to remain open to the rest of the world was picked up by other speakers at the conference.
“We need to work with a broad research community of academic institutions and national science academies, to push the boundaries for open science, and to promote its principles, practice and policies,” said Veronika Hunt Safrankova, Head of the Brussels office of the United Nations Environment Programme. “We have to have ears and eyes open to the whole world.”
Meanwhile, Angela Liberatore, Head of the Scientific Department at the European Research Council, made the case for scientific diplomacy, both between governments and between individual scientists.
“At the ERC, we have put together visiting fellowships with scientists in parts of the world which, let’s admit it, are not exactly champions of academic freedom, nor other kinds of freedom for that matter,” she said. “This kind of bottom-up, scientist-to-scientist science diplomacy is also a key part of science as a public good.”
Jennifer Baker, Cristina Russo, Angela Liberatore, Marja Makarow, Veronika Hunt Safrankova, Radka Wildova
Closing the conference, LERU Secretary General Professor Kurt Deketelaere highlighted the danger to universities of restrictions being placed on science in the name of national security and strategic autonomy.
“This raises the question: where is our academic freedom and institutional autonomy in this whole debate? Where is this going to lead?”
He concluded by saying that this would be an important battleground for the organisation in future.
“We, as institutions, know that our future is in global interdisciplinary collaboration, but at the same time we see that all kinds of hurdles are being put up to prevent that collaboration. Fighting the creation of those hurdles will be the central theme for LERU in its third decade.”
Prof. Kurt Deketelaere
The conference brought together a distinguished group of speakers to discuss science as a global public good. Policymakers taking part included Ms Radka Wildova, Deputy Minister for Higher Education, Science and Research in the Czech government, and Ms Cristina Russo, Director for Global Approach and International Cooperation in the European Commission’s DG Research and Innovation.
A series of academics picked up themes from Professor Boulton’s paper, with Professor Huub Dijstelbloem from the University of Amsterdam considering the implications for research ethics, Professor Pearl Dykstra from Erasmus University Rotterdam discussing the need for better communication in science, and Professor Marijk van der Wende of Utrecht University examining academic freedom and institutional autonomy.
Professor Koen Debackere, the managing director of Research and Development at KU Leuven reflected on the implications for public and private sector research, while Mr Karl Falkenberg of Shearwater Global talked about global challenges and solutions from the point of view of a former regulator.
Throughout the day, speakers returned to the COVID-19 pandemic as an important test case for science as a global public good. “The way we reacted to the pandemic has been pivotal in bringing Open Science to everybody’s attention,” said Dr Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost at University College London.
It also demonstrated the importance of investing in curiosity-driven research. “It is in the very best interests of society to safeguard resources for free academic research, because this is the knowledge from which translation to public good occurs,” said Marja Makarow, President of Academia Europaea.
