The Kick off Conference of the Open and Universal Science Project (OPUS), coordinated and organized by PLOCAN, was held at the headquarters of the singular scientific-technical infrastructure in Taliarte, Gran Canaria, with the participation and presentation of the plans of the 18 partners of the consortium, defining actions on how to produce an impact on all the relevant stakeholders for Open Science.
Over the next 3 years, the European project OPUS, with funding of 1.3 million €, will conduct a specific focus on reforming the research(er) assessment system to incentivise and reward researchers to take up Open Science practices: providing open access to research outputs, early and open sharing of research, participation in open peer-review, measures to ensure reproducibility of results, and involving citizens, civil society, and end-users in the co-creation of research and innovation agendas and content.
Jean-Emmanuel Faure, DG RTD, Policy Officer for Open Science at EU Commission joined the conference online and presented his expectations on the project from the European Research Executive Agency (REA) perspective. He also presented a survey on which type of academic work matter most for research careers. Rinske Van-Den-Berg, OPUS Project Officer in REA also joined online the OPUS kick-off conference, explaining the expectations from her perspective and providing inputs on how to successfully implement the project ‘OPUS
PLOCAN and RESOLVO SRL representatives, acting as OPUS project coordinator and project manager, opened the Kickoff Conference. It was highlighted by them that “OPUS is more than a theory project, it is very practical and we are proud to have research organisations: 3 research performing organisations (RPOs) and 2 research funding organisations (RFOs), where we will set up and monitor interventions to implement a reformed Open Science system”
During the work sessions of the kick-off meeting, the representatives of the organizations that make up the project consortium presented the plan devised to implement the work packages and meet its main objectives.
These objectives are to conduct a comprehensive state-of-the-art on existing literature and initiatives for Open Science, to develop a comprehensive set of tools to implement Open Science at RPOs and RFOs, to develop realistic indicators and metrics to monitor and drive Open Science at RPOs and RFOs; to test the interventions and indicators and metrics via action plans in pilots at RPOs and RFOs; to utilise a stakeholder-driven feedback loop to develop, monitor, refine, and validate actions; and to synthesise outcomes into policy briefs and a revised OS-CAM2 for research(er) assessment
The OPUS project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon EUROPE research and innovation programme under grant agreement 101058471.
