112th Helmholtz Open Science Newsletter

1. First German national report on UNESCO recommendation on open science published

In 2021, UNESCO, the UN organisation responsible for science, adopted the groundbreaking 'UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science'. The first international legal text of its kind, it aims to improve the quality and integrity of scientific work by encouraging open exchange, and to strengthen science's contribution to societal goals such as diversity, justice, and sustainability. While the recommendation does not have to be translated into national law, as a convention would, all states are nevertheless encouraged to translate its guidelines into political strategies at the national or institutional level. In Germany, the federal and state governments are urged to incorporate the recommendations into legal norms or political strategies at the national or institutional level. States must report on implementation every four years. The first German state report on the recommendation (in English) mentions the Helmholtz Association several times in a positive light as an important player. Particular emphasis is placed on the 2022 Helmholtz Open Science Policy, which refers directly to the UNESCO recommendations, and on the Helmholtz Open Science Office as an important instrument and role model for the German scientific landscape.

4. Alliance Events on the Future of Research Assessment

In November 2025, the “Reputation and Incentives” interest group of the Alliance Focus “Digitality in Science” organized two events dealing with the future of research assessment.

The online seminar “Reputation and Open Science” addressed the question of how scientific reputation and performance evaluation should evolve under the conditions of open science. Experts from various fields discussed changes in informal and formal evaluation mechanisms as well as the growing importance of infrastructural activities such as research software, data curation, and publication infrastructures. In addition, practical examples, strategic approaches, and recommendations for action were presented that pointed the way toward a contemporary and open science evaluation system. Slides and further information can be found here.

The online workshop “Unlocking Incentives for Future Research” was aimed at early-career researchers and examined which incentive structures can contribute to a more transparent and robust research landscape. The focus was on different forms of incentives - structural, cultural, and individual - and their significance for open, collaborative, and future-oriented research practices, for example in the areas of research data management, digital skills, and open science. Slides and further information can be found here.

5. Helmholtz Software Award Winners

The winners of the second Helmholtz Software Award have been awarded in the Helmholtz Incubator Workshop on November 24. This year's competition attracted 35 submissions via the Helmholtz Software Directory from 17 Helmholtz centers. A panel of 14 international experts carefully reviewed all the entries, assessing their scientific quality and technical innovation.

Following these evaluations, a committee comprising representatives from HIFIS, HIDA and the Helmholtz Open Science Office selected the winners in three categories. The high calibre of the submissions made the decision anything but simple, as many projects impressed with their originality and impact.

The winners are:

• Scientific Originality Prize: CP2K (Quantum Chemistry and Solid State Physics)

• Sustainability Prize: FastSurfer (Human Brain MRI Analysis)

• Newcomer Prize: MemBrain v2 (Cryo-ET Membranes Analysis)
   

These software solutions exemplify excellence in scientific software development and collaboration. Congratulations to all contributors on their remarkable achievements.

6. Helmholtz Forums on Research Software Rights Management and Enhancing Research Data Workflows for and with AI

The reports of two forums organized by the Helmholtz Open Science Office in September 2025 have been published.

The forum “Research Software Rights Management at Helmholtz” provided a practice-oriented platform for researchers, software developers, and legal experts to explore key aspects of research software governance. With a focus on licensing models, rights allocation processes within Helmholtz, and on the institutional policies guiding these processes, the event combined expert presentations with interactive workshops. The participants gained insights into best practices, legal frameworks, and implementation strategies to ensure compliant and sustainable software development in research environments. The documentation has been published here.

The second forum Helmholtz Research Data Commons, co-held together with the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC), focused on “Enhancing Research Data Workflows for and with AI”. It featured presentations on data readiness for AI applications from a practitioner’s perspective, on the Helmholtz AI tool BLABLADOR and on a use case of large language model aplications in astronomy. A subsequent discussion with the participants highlighted both the opportunities and challenges of enhancing research data workflows through AI, and showed that the issue demands not just technology, but a holistic approach focused on improving data quality and sustainability. Research Data Commons is a joint recurring format for the exchange and discussion of research data-relevant topics at Helmholtz, initiated in 2024 by HMC and the Helmholtz Open Science Office. Further insights into the forum are provided in the published documentation (in English).

7. arXiv restricts acceptance of low-quality AI content

In a blog post at the end of October 2025, arXiv, the oldest preprint server, announced that it would be restricting the acceptance of review articles and position papers in the “Computer Science” (CS) category with immediate effect. In the future, review articles in this category will only be accepted if they have previously been accepted by a journal or as a contribution to a conference and have undergone a peer review process.

The reason given for the measure is the dramatic increase in submissions of review articles and position papers. According to the announcement, hundreds of low-quality review articles are submitted every month, overloading the moderation team. The advent of generative AI has made it relatively easy to produce this type of content on demand, and most of the review articles submitted are little more than annotated bibliographies without substantial discussion. If other categories of arXiv experience a similar increase in AI-generated review articles and position papers, corresponding changes to the moderation process may also be made there.

Similar problems with record numbers of spam articles and AI-generated submissions have now also been reported in a blog post by the social science preprint server SocArXiv. As a measure against the flood of AI articles, an ORCID iD will be required for submissions in the future, and the moderation team also intends to limit the content to the core area of the social sciences.

8. Supercomputing-in-Deutschland (SIDE) at Forschungszentrum Jülich

Researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich's Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine 4 (INM-4) successfully accelerated complex image reconstruction for their novel quantitative MRI (qMRI) method with the help of Supercomputing-in-Deutschland (SIDE), the national competence center for supercomputing in Germany. The optimized workflow improves scan speed, image quality, and biomarker precision - key steps toward clinical testing. High-performance computing (HPC) thus transformed this novel scientific advancement into a scalable solution.

Funded by the EU and the BMFTR, SIDE operates a network of scientists, providers, and users of supercomputers. Through this network, scientists in Germany can receive HPC advice, training, and support in gaining access to systems free of cost. By partnering with both scientists and industrial experts, SIDE also provides expertise and training in HPC related skills such as  high-performance data analytics (HPDA), software performance optimization, and simulation to make scientific work go further, faster.

This collaboration between SIDE and INM4 demonstrates the benefits of open science and sharing expertise, enabling researchers to make significant progress in their field. For more information on SIDE and the breadth of its work, watch the video of the 2nd SIDE Annual Forum or browse the FAQs.

Recommended Reading

Advancing equity and inclusion in scholarly communication. Findings from the consultation on a Global Diamond Open Access Framework. (2025). UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000396324

Balancing research security and open science. Expert panel on sensitive research of concern. (2025). Council of Canadian Academies. https://doi.org/10.60870/fmt9-9559

Bösendörfer, S., Prestel, P., Eichler, F., Betz, C., Borchert, C. & Baumgartner, D. (2025). Elicitation of Requirements and Development of Production Workflows for Accessible Diamond Open Access Publications. ABI Technik 45(4), 422-431. https://doi.org/10.1515/abitech-2025-0068

Lange, M., Wiese, R. & Fischer, G. (2025). Open Access und Verwertungsgesellschaft Wort: Rechtssichere Wege zur offenen Forschung. o-bib – das offene Bibliotheksjournal, 12(4). https://doi.org/10.5282/o-bib/6197

Legge, M., Ross, D., Chiarelli, A., Fraser, K., & Johnson, R. (2025). Embracing the complexity of '100% OA'. From percentage to participation. OASPA & Research Consulting. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17348123

Matthias, L. Pampel, H., Khamis, C. O. & Rothfritz, L. (2025). Zweitveröffentlichung: Handlungsfeld für institutionelle Open-Access-Repositorien. Handreichung. Pro OAR DE. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16810750

Ochsner, C., Pampel, H., Höfting, J., & Rothfritz, L. (2025). Scholarly blogs: An analysis of infrastructural aspects based on German scholarly blogs. Journal of Documentation, 81(7), 520–544. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2025-0053

Ochsner, C., Pampel, H., Höfting, J., & Rothfritz, L. (2025). Wissenschaftsblogs in Deutschland: Eine Analyse infrastruktureller Aspekte. Bibliothek Forschung und Praxis, 49(3), 417-437. https://doi.org/10.1515/bfp-2025-0028

Pampel, H. & Ochsner, C (2025). The case for preserving scholarly blogs. LSE Impact Blog. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2025/11/18/the-case-for-preserving-scholarly-blogs/

Rothfritz, L., Matthias, L., Pampel, H., & Wrzesinski, M. (2025). Current challenges and future directions for institutional repositories: A systematic literature review. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, n/a(n/a). https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.70016

Schneider, J., & Pampel, H. (2025). Mapping the Landscape of Open Access Dashboards—A Dataset for Research and Infrastructure Development. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2512.01669

Sharma, G., Munteanu, V., Ghiasi, N. M., Banerjee, J., Varma, S., Foschini, L., Ellrott, K., Mutlu, O., Ciorbă, D., Ophoff, R. A., Bostan, V., Mason, C. E., Moore, J. H., Sousoni, D., Krishnan, A., Mason, C. E., Dimian, M., Stolovitzky, G., Liberante, F. G., … Mangul, S. (2025). A decentralized future for the open-science databases. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.19206

Wehner, M., Alastair, & Moore, A. V. (2025). The ORCID Advocacy Toolkit: towards a community-driven resource. Scottish Journal of Open Research, 1, 3–11. https://doi.org/10.36399/ag1cs624