National Open Science Week 2026
Join an (online) event in the week of 14-18 September!
For the third year in a row, the Network of Open Science Communities in the Netherlands (OSC-NL) organises the OSC-NL National Open Science Week to celebrate and appreciate the important role of Open Science in the advancement of science.
In Leiden, the theme this year is ‘Facilitating Equitable Collaborations Through Open Science’. Open Science is increasingly supported by universities around the world and is changing the way that research is done, disseminated and reused. Nonetheless, how Open Science is practiced within universities varies due to policy differences, resourcing capacity and local preferences.
Open research practices can serve as an important enabler of equitable collaborations between universities. However, failing to appreciate the institutional differences in the way that openness is practiced can be problematic. When these differences are not discussed it can lead to misaligned expectations, exacerbate power inequalities and cause stress and confusion.
For example, if a university has a career policy that still prioritises journal articles, researchers from this university might be less inclined for their collaborative project to focus on pre-printing and non-traditional research outputs. Similarly, researchers working at a university that doesn’t have data stewarding capacity can have very good reasons not to adopt advanced data sharing practices.
Understanding the power of Open Science to enable equitable collaborations requires that we start having conversations about how to navigate these differences and variations. How, it becomes important to ask, can collaborations ensure that openness works for everyone in the team and does not unfairly burden or stress certain members.
As an international university with a global collaboration footprint, this is a conversation that we need to have at Leiden. We need to have strategies that enable Leiden researchers to establish equitable and open collaborations. We also need plans for embedding equitable openness in the memoranda of understanding that we sign with other universities, such as the recent MoU between Leiden and the University of Ghana.
What is the next step?
The next step can depend on where you are in your academic journey. Some of you are just starting and might want to become members of the community. Others need guidance on open publishing. What field you are in, or more exactly what faculty you affiliate with, also matters.
Wherever you are in your journey, see whether one of the events during OS week is of interest for you, and feel free to engage with the OSCL Teams, for instance by asking any OS related question you may have in the Q&A channel.