104th Helmholtz Open Science Newsletter

1. Helmholtz is Funding Research on AI Foundation Models

The Helmholtz Association is funding research into foundation models for artificial intelligence in the fields of medicine, climate research, and materials science. As part of the Helmholtz Foundation Model Initiative (HFMI), four pilot projects and the required infrastructure are being funded with around 23 million euros. The aim is to develop fully functional AI foundation models that are capable of solving complex problems on the basis of a very broad knowledge base and are therefore significantly more powerful and flexible than conventional AI models. Twelve Helmholtz Centers are participating in the projects, which aim to accelerate the development of photovoltaic materials (SOL-AI), improve the accuracy of climate models (HClimRep), make radiological diagnoses more reliable (Human Radiome Project), and optimize the understanding of the global carbon cycle (3D-ABC). The projects will receive funding of 11 million euros over a period of three years, while a further 12 million euros will be invested in the development of the necessary infrastructure. While the individual projects will concentrate on their specific questions, an additional Synergy Unit will focus on interdisciplinary issues that are relevant to all projects. The project results – code, training data and the trained models – are to be made openly available in the spirit of open source. Due to its success, the HFMI is already preparing a second round of calls for further project applications in the second half of the year. Further information can be found in the official press release.

2. Shaping Digitality - Promoting Openness and Sovereignty

Under the heading "Digitality in Science", the Alliance of Science Organizations is continuing the cooperation that has been ongoing since 2008 (formerly known as the "Digital Information Priority Initiative"). Interest groups and task forces have been established with the newly formulated aim of shaping digitality – promoting openness and sovereignty. The new website provides information on topics and products.

4. Alliance Statement on the Study “Mapping and Describing Open Access Services in Germany”

The recently published study "Mapping and Description of Open Access Services in Germany" (in German) was commissioned by the German Research Foundation for the Alliance of Science Organizations and accompanied by a working group from the Alliance organizations. The study was conducted in the context of the Alliance strategy for open access transformation. The study was carried out against the background of European and international science policy appeals to strengthen publicly funded and science-led publication infrastructures. Among other things, the statement (in German) reads:

“Overall, non-commercial open access offerings in Germany form a decentralized backbone of academic publishing culture that includes sufficient subject-specific and interdisciplinary publication offerings and background services. However, there is a lack of success criteria and coordination to avoid redundancies. In addition, not all services are reliable, sustainable, and competitive in terms of quality as of yet.

The Alliance therefore calls on scientific institutions and funding bodies at federal and state ministry level to focus on this sector and support sustainable financing models in the long term. The stabilization and strengthening of the segment of non-profit infrastructure supported by scientific institutions must result in this infrastructure being able to be operated and used professionally. The benefits for the entire scientific system lie not least in an increase in digital sovereignty.”

6. Action Plans to Implement the Commitments of the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment

The work of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) continues to take shape. Following the establishment of working groups and national chapters, the member organizations have begun, to disclose in agreed-upon "Action Plans" how their organization has started the process of implementing the core commitments. An overview of the concept of action plans can be found on the CoARA website. The first of these action plans are available on Zenodo. The EU Commission has also published such an action plan in its role as a member organization of CoARA. All in all, it is well worth reading.

7. Unique Identification of Research Institutions

ROR is an internationally supported registry of persistent identifiers (PIDs) for research organizations, driven by the PID community. The second version of the ROR schema and API is now available and offers a more powerful and optimized experience. Users of ROR now have the option to utilize an enhanced and robust version that features dates on when records were created and last modified, a designated space for storing language codes for all name types, and a more flexible and efficient structure. You can find more information on this blog.

9. Open Hardware: Helmholtz Open Science Online Seminar and Conference

Julieta Arancio from the Open Research Funders Group spoke at the 69th Helmholtz Open Science Online Seminar on May 23, 2024 on "Open Hardware" and how this exciting topic can be more deeply integrated into conversations around open science with regard to scientific instruments. The changes in science policy over the last decade and the associated endorsement of open science has led to institutional strategies, new role descriptions and more infrastructures for enabling broader access to scientific knowledge. Most of these open science strategies at research institutions focus on open access to publications, open research data and – in exceptional cases – research software.

This seminar focused on open hardware, a more recent area in the open science context, which has also found its way into the UNESCO recommendations on Open Science of 2021. After an introduction to the basic concept, the most important initiatives and the latest developments around open hardware, the possibilities and limitations of open hardware to make open science more reproducible, efficient, and fair were discussed. The documentation of the online seminar (slides and recording) can be found on the event page.

If you are interested in the topic of Open Hardware, the Open Source Hardware Conference 2024 (September, 30 to October, 1, 2024 in Dresden) offers you opportunities for information, exchange and networking.

10. open-access.network – Workshop "Identifying and Recording Invoices for Publication Costs across Departments" for Libraries and Finance Departments

In May 2024, the workshop "Identifying and recording invoices for publication costs across departments" (in German) continued the series of online workshops on "Financial design of the open access transformation at universities and scientific institutions" organized by the library of Bielefeld University and the Helmholtz Open Science Office as part of the BMBF project open-access.network.

The third event in the workshop series was aimed specifically at colleague tandems from the library and finance department of the same institution. Several presentations dealt with cross-departmental cooperation with the aim of using invoices to record publication costs for the entire institution. In the first talk, information materials and recommendations for recording and processing publication costs were presented from the Austrian AT2OA² project. In two presentations from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, workflows for invoice processing in the library were first described in a practical example, followed by a report from the finance department on how SAP reports can be used to control publication costs. Finally, the open source software CODA (Customizable Open Access Database Application) was presented, which enables publication-related data to be recorded and processed. The more than 180 participants from finance departments and libraries at the event were able to share and deepen their own experiences of working together to record and trace publication costs.

The presentation slides of the workshop were published in open access and are linked on the event webpage.

11. Colloquium "Open Science in the Service of Science"

On June 14, 2024, the Colloquium "Open Science in the Service of Science" took place on the Telegrafenberg in Potsdam. The event honored the contributions of Roland Bertelmann, the long-time head of the Helmholtz Open Science Office, who will now retire after a dedicated professional career. Around 100 participants paid tribute to his achievements and his tireless commitment to open access to scientific results - be it texts, research data, or software. Following the main program, participants had the opportunity to mingle and network further during a small reception.

Recommended Reading

Bosman, J., Debackere, K., Cawthorn, W., Galimberti, P., Graffner, M., Held, L., Hermans, K., Killard, F., Labastida, I., Millar, A., Robinson, M., Roser, K., Svendsen, M., & Wouters, P. (2024). Next generation metrics for scientific and scholarly research in Europe. League of European Research Universities (LERU). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11123148

CERN-NASA Working Group "Infrastructure for Open Scholarship". (2024). Science funders: commitments towards open infrastructure. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11444361

Colavizza, G., Cadwallader, L., LaFlamme, M., Dozot, G., Lecorney, S., Rappo, D., & Hrynaszkiewicz, I. (2024). An analysis of the effects of sharing research data, code, and preprints on citations (arXiv:2404.16171). arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.16171

Hoffstätter, U., & Weber, A. (2024). Langzeitarchivierung von Forschungsdaten. Einführung in das Thema zu Daten der Sozial-, Verhaltens-, Bildungs- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften in Forschungsdatenzentren. KonsortSWD Working Paper Nr.9/2024. Konsortium für die Sozial-, Verhaltens-, Bildungs- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften (KonsortSWD). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10418834

Hosseini, M., Horbach, S., Holmes, K. L., & Ross-Hellauer, T. (2024). Open Science at the Generative AI turn: an exploratory analysis of challenges and opportunities. Preprint. SocArXiv (OSF). https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/zns7g

Levchenko, M., Parkin, M., McEntyre, J., & Harrison, M. (2024). Enabling preprint discovery, evaluation, and analysis with Europe PMC. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.19.590240

Maddi, A. (2024). The nexus of open science and innovation: insights from patent citations. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2404.15281

Malički, M. (2024). Structure Peer Review to Make It More Robust. Nature, 628, 476–476. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01101-9.

Puebla, I., Ascoli, G., Blume, J., Chodacki, J., Finnell, J., Kennedy, D. N., Mair, B., Martone, M. E., Wittenberg, J., & Poline, J.-B. (2024). Ten simple rules for recognizing data and software contributions in hiring, promotion and tenure. OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/u3c4y

Rico-Castro, P., Rooryck, J., Melinščak Zlodi, I., Stojanovski, J., Ševkušić, M., & Armengou, C. (2024). D3.2 Extensible Quality Standard in Institutional Publishing (EQSIP) V2.0 for Diamond Open Access. DIAMAS Project. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10726732