Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software based at University of Limerick, has launched an Open Science Charter which promotes making research openly available to all.
The new charter will lead to increased visibility for researchers, greater opportunities for collaboration, and greater transparency in the research process.
At the launch in University of Limerick, Director of Lero, Professor Brian Fitzgerald said: “Lero is committed to Ireland’s goal of ensuring that all scholarly publications resulting from publicly funded research are openly available.
“Open Science practices, which optimise access to research, are integral to Lero so we can collaborate and contribute, where research data, relevant software and other research processes are freely available, under terms that enable reuse, redistribution and reproduction of the research and its underlying data and methods,” he added.
Launching the charter, Ireland’s National Open Research Coordinator Dr Daniel Bangert said: “Lero’s Open Science Charter is a welcome demonstration of leadership and commitment to Open Science and the principle of sharing research for the benefit of science and society”.
“It is well aligned with the international movement towards Open Science and national objectives developed by Ireland’s National Open Research Forum. Lero’s Charter outlines centre-wide strategies and incentives for Open Science and these practical commitments will make a valuable contribution to the national agenda.”
Lero’s Open Science Charter is the first to be published by a Science Foundation Ireland research centre. It is formulated in line with the EU’s Open Science policy which identifies several Open Science ambitions, including:
- FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable data) and open data sharing is the default approach at Lero for the results of EU-funded scientific research.
- Lero will align its sharing strategies with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) platform as it becomes available. This federated ecosystem of research data infrastructures enables the scientific community to share and process publicly funded research results and data.
- All peer-reviewed scientific publications should be freely accessible, and the early sharing of different research outputs should be encouraged.
- Research career evaluation systems should fully acknowledge Open Science activities.
- Citizen Science, the public should be able to make significant contributions and be recognised as valid European science knowledge producers.
(Picture attached: Director of Lero, Professor Brian Fitzgerald)
