The Open Science Virtual Dialogues, a key tool for academic cooperation, information exchange and inclusive policy-making in the field of science and research, took place on 6 and 7 April. To this end, the EU-LAC Foundation and the OBREAL Global partnership, with the support of the Pro Tempore Presidency of CELAC and the European Commission, invited high-level speakers, experts in the field, to present the "Innovations, Challenges and Projections for the Future from an Interregional Dialogue" on Open Science in the regions. The virtual event was attended by more than 160 participants from the European Union (EU) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
The event was launched jointly by the EU-LAC Foundation and OBREAL Global with the motivation of building collectively through dialogue, facilitating a space that multiplies exchanges, favours training and promotes knowledge of the tools for the practice of Open Science. The aim is to promote synergies that make it possible to involve institutions and experts in the field in LAC, the EU and other regions. Open Science stands out in a current context in which the challenges are global and the guidelines to solve them must necessarily include scientific communities.
The European Union (EU) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have an important track record in Open Science. Both regions were actively involved in the elaboration of the UNESCO Open Science Recommendation. In addition, both regions have developed several initiatives related to Open Science that go beyond regional borders and allow interaction between the two regions with other regions of the world.
The Programme was inaugurated by Ramón Torrent, President of OBREAL Global; Adrián Bonilla, Executive Director of the EU-LAC Foundation who highlighted the importance of the multi-regional perspective and, specifically, of social cohesion in the bi-regional agenda, clarifying that this "is a human development objective that refers us to concepts of equality and equity in the distribution of resources"; María Cristina Russo, Director of Global Approach and International Cooperation in R&I, DG Research and Innovation, European Commission, who stated that "a global approach to research information is essential and there is no better time than now to confirm our commitment to the values and principles on which international cooperation is also moving towards Open Science"; Karina Pombo, National Director of Science Policy Promotion - International Affairs, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Argentina (representing PPT CELAC), who highlighted that "the challenge is to promote an Open Science, socially responsible, and active in the global conversation of science"; and, finally, Joan Gómez Pallàres, Director General of Research, Generalitat de Catalunya, who stated that "there is no progress without science and, science today means Open Science".
The opening panel was followed by a dialogue between high-level experts on tools and policies to promote open access, open data and open education, with the participation of Paola Azrilevich, Head of the Executive Secretariat of the National System of Digital Repositories and the Electronic Library of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation of the Argentine Republic, promoting the need to "produce changes in the traditional models of evaluation to open them to other models of doing science"; and Alea López de San Román, an official in the Open Science Unit of the EuropeanCommission's Directorate for Research and Innovation, highlighting the "importance of increasing research efficiency, scientific creativity and public confidence in science". They offered policy perspectives from CELAC and the EU. Secondly, Dominique Babini (Advisor to the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) on Open Science) who spoke about bibliodiversity in repositories and the leading role of universities, Paul Ayris (Co-President of the INFO Community of the League of European Research Universities, LERU) who highlighted the way forward in moving from a subscription to an open-accessmodel, Ignasi Labastida (Chair of the Information Policy and Open Access Group of the League of European Research Universities, LERU) who seeks to make "science more open", Donovan Campbell (Head of the Department of Geography and Geology, University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica), Oscar Domínguez (President of the Latin American and Caribbean Higher Education Area (ENLACES), Executive Director of the Colombian Association of Universities, ASCUN) who gave the universities' perspectives on institutional challenges", and Lautaro Matas (Executive Secretary and Technical Manager of the Open Access to Science Repositories Network, La Referencia) who motivated us to "work together in a regional open science ecosystem". They all spoke from the perspectives of knowledge producers and decision-makers from CELAC and the EU, followed by Krishna Ganesh, Director of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Tirupati, Andra Pradesh, who offered his perspective from India. Thus, the next step included a very fruitful round of questions and discussion that concluded with a wrap-up of the first Virtual Dialogue, offered by Director Adrián Bonilla.
The second virtual dialogue was aimed at exploring new trends in research evaluation and academic merit. This was opened by Adrián Bonilla, Executive Director of the EU-LAC Foundation, followed by the participation of Marina Larrea, Director of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Argentina and Jean-Emmanuel Faure, from the Open Science Unit of the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, representing the political perspectives from CELAC and the EU. In this space, they were able to detail concretely which are the main public policies regarding Open Science, how they work and what are their limitations, achievements and motivations. In the next block, the perspectives from the evaluators and those evaluated in CELAC and the EU were presented by Bianca Amaro (President of the Open Access to Science Repositories Network, The Reference), Rainer Lange (Head of the Department of Research Policy, German Council for Science and Humanities), Daniel Antenucci (University of Mar del Plata and National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), Argentina), Ernest Abadal (Vice-Rector attached to the Rector and for Teaching and Research Staff, University of Barcelona), Pastora Martínez Samper (Member of the European University Association (EUA) Expert Group on Science 2. 0 and Open Science; Chair of the EUA Subgroup of Experts on Research Assessment; Vice-Rector for Globalisation and Cooperation at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya), Bert Overlaet (Chair of the Human Resources Policy and Researchers' Careers Group of the League of European Research Universities, LERU) and Laura Rovelli (Coordinator of the Latin American Forum on Science Evaluation of the Latin American Social Science Council - FOLEC/CLACSO), followed by Joy Owango, Executive Director of the Communication Training Centre of the University of Nairobi, offering an African perspective on the topic and assessing the great possibility for the Global South to benefit from Open Science processes.
During this last dialogue, the capacity of Open Science to unite countries of the Global South with countries of the North at the same level of scientific communication; the need to open up processes of evaluation and assessment of researchers' curricula more narrative than metric; the call for a scientific community that embraces multilingualism as a hallmark of diversity between the two regions, promoting Spanish and other equally valid scientific languages; and sharing that democracy is the way forward; the call for a scientific community that embraces multilingualism as a hallmark of the diversity existing between the two regions, promoting Spanish and other equally valid languages of science; and sharing that democracy is the way forward in the creation of science; finally, Open Science works to develop and promote democratic multilateralism, so necessary in the era in which we live. The conference concluded with a wrap-up and final reflections by Ramón Torrent, President of OBREAL Global.
The results obtained from these two days of dialogues will be reflected in a document that will serve as a general input to WHEC2022 and on the basis of which an inter-regional panel promoted by the EU-LAC Foundation and OBREAL Global will be organised within the official programme of the UNESCO conference.
