Seminar: ACM and Open Science: A New Paradigm for the Research Lifecycle and the Role of Computing

Abstract: Open Science is a new paradigm of doing research, promoting collaboration, transparency, accountability, and reproducibility, aiming at more impactful outcomes for society. It requires an entirely different way of scholarly communication, different research assessment criteria, significant technological support, etc. Parts of the scientific community across all disciplines are pushing in the direction of Open Science bottom-up, but governmental mandates are being established for certain aspects of Open Science (especially, Open Access) around the world as well. In this non-technical talk, I will first present the basic principles of Open Science and how it may impact the everyday life of researchers in the style of publications and other aspects. Then, I will dive into some of the main steps in the typical research lifecycle and give more details on the changes that need to occur to serve the open science philosophy, including open access, open reviews, open infrastructures (e.g., the long-term work in Europe on the OpenAIRE infrastructure), open research preregistration, and others. I will conclude with how ACM approaches Open Science, in particular, Open Access, and what the general role of computing is in supporting it, also touching upon the ACM 4.0 Initiative, which is under implementation currently and has Open Science as one of its dimensions.

Bio: Yannis Ioannidis is the President of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). He is a Professor at the Department of Informatics and Telecom of the University of Athens as well as an Associated Faculty at  the “Athena” Research and Innovation Center, where he also served as the President and General Director for 10 years. His research interests  include Database and Information Systems, Data Science, Data Infrastructures and Digital Repositories, Recommender Systems and Personalization, and Interactive Digital Storytelling. His work is often  inspired by and applied to data management and analysis problems that arise in industrial environments or in the context of other scientific fields (Social Sciences and Humanities, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences) and the Arts. He is an ACM and IEEE Fellow, a member of Academia Europaea, and a recipient of several research, teaching, and service awards. He is a co-founder of several AI/data-driven start-ups and a co-chair of the Global Climate Hub of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.