KU Leuven Open Science Day

# KU Leuven Open Science Day

Sara Decoster¹

¹KU Leuven

Published on: Jul 27, 2021

License: [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

# KU Leuven Open Science Day
The first edition of the KU Leuven Open Science day was set up as an event for and by researchers, where all scholars were offered a platform to discuss, share knowledge, and exchange practices about Open Science. The attendance, enthusiasm, and contributions of many scholars from all career stages – professors, postdocs, and PhD students – were heartening indications of the timeliness of this initiative. In our call for participation we gave researchers the choice between different approaches: we welcomed theoretical contributions offering a thorough analysis of an Open Science topic, but applicants could also address their own subject and show how they implement Open Science principles in their research. The vast majority of speakers opted for this second possibility, which should probably not come as a surprise. Every scholar cares about the quality of his/her research, and thus about integrity. Open Science can be part of the answer. Of course, Open Science is a gradual, incremental process, and not all principles apply in the same way to every researcher. Openness brings many opportunities, but there are also challenges and barriers that we have to deal with.

At the outset, our **keynote speaker Dorothy Bishop** showed clearly how current research practices are damaging science, and how Open Science offers some solutions. If research output is openly available, if underlying data are accessible, scientific results become more reproducible and errors are detected more quickly. Indeed, many speakers focused on reproducibility issues during the Open Science day. High statistical power is one way to enhance the reliability of findings. Preregistering a study protocol before data collection can be another part of the puzzle, and helps avoiding bias. Other papers were related to data management and considered questions like interoperability or the introduction of Open Science and RDM practices in a daily lab routine. Furthermore, it is obvious that Open Science practices and data sharing have to be implemented in a responsible way, with respect for privacy matters for instance. Finally, a panel discussion pointed out that research is integrated into society, and that citizen science can be valuable to involve non-academic partners.

Many partners contributed to this event, which was organized by KU Leuven Libraries in collaboration with the Research Coordination Office and the Information & Communication Technology & Systems Office (ICTS), under the auspices of the [KU Leuven Open Science task force](https://www.kuleuven.be/open-science). We are also grateful to our scientific committee: Pascal Borry (Department of Public Health and Primary Care), Olivia Kirtley (Department of Neurosciences), Johan Philips (Department of Mechanical Engineering), Violet Soen (Faculty of Arts), Francis Tuerlinckx (Faculty of Psychology
and Educational Sciences), Thomas Vandendriessche (KU Leuven Libraries 2Bergen), Joos Vandewalle (Open Science ambassador), Patrick Vandewalle (Department of Electrical Engineering ESAT), Hannelore Vanhaverbeke (Research Coordination Office) and Demmy Verbeke (KU Leuven Libraries Artes). The organizing committee, chaired by Sara Decoster (KU Leuven Libraries), was comprised of colleagues from various divisions of KU Leuven (mostly the libraries, Research Coordination Office, and ICTS): Ingrid Barcena Roig, Nathalie Claes, Carl Demeyere, Rachel Geenens, Kristel Hoydonckx, Laura Mesotten, Nele Noppe, Thomas Vandendriessche, Veerle Van den Eynden, Diewer van der Meijden, Joos Vandewalle, Jan Vanvelk, and Roxanne Wyns. Special thanks go to Joos Vandewalle who, as the Open Science ambassador of KU Leuven, was instrumental in shaping this Open Science day and formed the bridge between the organizing and scientific committee; and to Veerle Van den Eynden and Ingrid Barcena Roig, who managed the platform which hosted the event.

## Author biography

**Sara Decoster** (KU Leuven) obtained a PhD in Languages and Letters at Liège University and works as an Open Science staff member at KU Leuven Libraries. She joined KU Leuven in 2018, as a metadata librarian for research data management. Previously, she held a position of library manager and research librarian at Liège University for eleven years. She gained international experience through participating in a development cooperation project and a two years' experience at Academia Belgica in Rome.