Following an inspiring ceremony on 14 February 2025, we are delighted to announce the winners of the YERUN Open Science Awards 2024! The event, held from 12:00 to 13:30 CET, showcased exemplary open science practices that are making a difference in research, education, and public engagement.
The event started with a warm welcome from YERUN Secretary General, Silvia Gomez Recio, who provided valuable insights into YERUN’s commitment to open science. This was followed by a presentation from Mariangela Boe, YERUN Communications Officer & Network Coordinator, who offered a brief history of the YERUN Open Science Awards and their key features.
Special recognition was given to the members of the final evaluation panel, whose expertise and dedication played a crucial role in selecting this year’s winners: Ms. Chiara Colella, former YERUN colleague, now at the European Commission; Dr. Inma Andrés, Master’s Programmes Manager in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London; and Mr. Tiago Guedes, Head of the Research Information Management Office at NOVA University Lisbon.
The ceremony then highlighted the award-winning open science initiatives, showcasing the impact and innovation behind each project:
- VINCULUM has been submitted by Maria de Lurdes Rosa, Auxiliary Professor at NOVA University Lisbon. Under the motto “YOU CAN BE A HISTORIAN”, this initiative opens academic research to schools and communities by engaging students in local heritage projects. The programme fosters a model that links in-depth research with humanities education, using research data tailored to students’ knowledge and interests. A presentation on this project is available here.
- Diverse Dissemination and Public Engagement Activities: Perspectives from Ireland, submitted by Ann-Marie Creaven, Associate Professor at University of Limerick, is dedicated to developing sustainable approaches to open science by embedding it within existing initiatives, ensuring long-term impact. More details can be found in the presentation available here.
- Bremer Open Science Initiative at Faculty 11, submitted by Julia Stern, Senior Researcher at University of Bremen, focused on strengthening open science in research, teaching, and committee work. It provides support for researchers at all career stages in publishing open data and materials, pre-registering their work, writing registered reports, and receiving guidance on open-source software and open access publishing. It also develops ideas on how to integrate open science into teaching and student supervision, assisting in bringing these ideas to fruition. The presentation is accessible here.
- NODES – Task Force Neuroendocrinology Open Data Exchange Standard, submitted by Maria Meier, postdoctoral researcher at University of Konstanz on behalf of a team, aims to develop a community-driven standard data format for psychoneuroendocrinology (PNE). This initiative envisions easy and effortless data sharing to make open data the new norm in the field. It is complemented by a supportive infrastructure, including web applications that assist in restructuring and validating datasets and metadata before publication. More information can be found in the following this link.
The event was further enriched by the participation of Mr. Javier Lopez Abacete, Policy Officer at the Unit on Open Science, DG RTD, European Commission, who shared insights on the new ERA Policy Agenda and the future direction of Open Science within it.
In her closing remarks, Silvia Gomez Recio thanked all attendees for their engagement and support. She encouraged participants to explore the open access materials available on the YERUN website, which offer valuable resources for institutions seeking to implement their own open science initiatives.
We extend our heartfelt congratulations to all the award winners and express our sincere appreciation to our speakers, participants, evaluators, and the YERUN ad hoc group on Open Science for their invaluable contributions. Together, we continue our journey towards a more open, transparent, and collaborative research world!
YERUN would also like to congratulate the other two pre-selected practices of this year’s edition:
- NATIEV – An adapted method for targeted intercellular communication mediated by EVs – is an initiative by NOVA University Lisbon that focuses on developing a computational tool to enable the reuse and exploration of openly available extracellular vesicles (EVs) datasets. EVs are bilayer vesicles that carry bioactive molecules, playing a crucial role in cell-to-cell communication. By using NATIEV, researchers can reuse more than 4000 EVs dataset already hosted in public repositories to investigate the role of these vesicles in their target tissue. This approach can provide valuable insights into the role of EVs in various diseases.
- Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing is an initiative by UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Launched 2006, over the years it has expanded in scope and size. From being a conference held in Norwegian/Scandinavian focusing mainly on national publishing policies, it has grown into an intercontinental arena, spanning diverse fields related to open science and publication, including, but not limited to Open Access, data management and data repositories, research reproducibility, peer review, research communication and dissemination, equitable science, and open education.
Missed the ceremony? Don’t worry! You can watch the recording here.
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YERUN Open Science Awards: Open Access material
Are you inspired by the YERUN Open Science Awards and would you like to set up a similar scheme in your own institutions/networks? YERUN can help you! Find here all the useful material open access. You can personalise the scheme as you like. And do not forget to have a lot of fun in the process!
