Strengthening the
Sustainable Development Goals with
Open Access and Open Science
Challenges and Opportunities
Leslie Chan
University of Toronto Scarborough
Webinar in conjunction with the e-forum on "Sustainable Development Goals: The
Impact of Access to Information on our Societies". Sept. 15, 2015
Agenda
• Personal background and conceptual
approaches to Open Access and Open Science
• SDGs, the good and the bad
• Specific links between the SDGs and Open
Science and Open Access
• Policy considerations
http://www.bioline.org.br
http://www.bioline.org.br
Could Open Access change the current
power structure of global scientific
production and dissemination?
Periphery
open access creates the
potential for new spaces for
collaboration and co-creation
of knowledge
Centre
Periphery
Openness as a means to
development
What is the nature of “openness” and
its linkage to innovations for public
goods and how can this understanding
help formulate and support enabling
policies?
Meanings of Openness
•
•
•
•
Free of cost barriers
Free of permission barriers
Free to share and re-use
Rights to Research, meaning the rights to
participate in knowledge production and
meaning making
• Inclusive Participation (beyond expertise)
• Equitable Collaboration
• Promote Cognitive justice
“The right to science envisages the
scientific and technological
endeavor as a process that every
person is entitled to participate in—
a collective and collaborative
process that can help to unite a
frequently fragmented world.”
Lea Shaver, The Right to Science and Culture. 2010 WISC. L. REV. 121 (2010)
Open and Collaborative Science
in Development Network
http://www.ocsdnet.org
@ocsdnet
Funding:
Coordination
A proposition that open
models and peer-based
production, enabled by
pervasive network
technologies, non-market
based incentive structures
and alternative licensing
regimes, could result in
greater participation, access
and collaboration across
different social and
economic sectors.
This call for:
• Diverse empirical research on “openness” across
disciplinary boundaries
• Development of rich conceptual frameworks that
acknowledge the diversity of knowledge production,
forms of representations, and legitimation
• Understanding principles of technical and social
interoperability and the supporting institutional
structures
• Rethinking on funding support and incentive structures
• Policy Alignment between funders and development
organizations
Open Science as Inclusive Science
• Could OCS thinking and practices lead to a
more inclusive view of knowledge production
and legitimation?
• What kind of tools, standards, infrastructure,
institutions and policies would need to be
created or adapted to enable OCS and equal
participation of researchers from marginalized
regions?
• The network is supporting 12 sub-projects with
researchers from 15 countries
• 3 projects from Sub-Saharan Africa, 1 from the
Middle East, 1 from the Caribbean, 4 from Latin
America, and 3 from South, East and Central Asia
• Diverse topics: citizen science, open hardware,
open data, IP policy, climate change, food
security, public health, indigenous knowledge,
sociology of science…
Practice
Principles
Inclusion
Open Access
Knowledge as a
Public Good
Open Data
Open
Science
Rights to Research
for Social Justice
Doing Science
Openly
& Collaboratively
Policy
Knowing Differently
Innovation
Funding
Infrastructure
Intellectual
Property
Incentive
Overarching Framework:
Governance and Sustainability ?
The Sustainable Development Goals
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/nginteractive/2015/jan/19/sustainable-development-goals-changing-world-17-
End poverty
in all its
forms
everywhere
Build resilient
infrastructure,
promote inclusive and
sustainable
industrialisation and
foster innovation
Promote peaceful
and inclusive
societies for
sustainable
development, provide
access to justice for
all and build effective,
accountable and
inclusive institutions
at all levels
End poverty
in all its
forms
everywhere
Build resilient
infrastructure,
promote inclusive and
sustainable
industrialisation and
foster innovation
Knowledge
Poverty
Promote peaceful
and inclusive
societies for
sustainable
development, provide
access to justice for
all and build effective,
accountable and
inclusive institutions
at all levels
Cognitive
Justice and
Rights to
Research
Knowledge
Infrastructure
The Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA)
The World of Scientific Output According to Thomson’s ISI
Science Citation Index
Data from 2002
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=205
How much of the
research output
from Africa are
relevant to the
problems faced
by Africans?
The Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA)
The need to build robust
and scalable Knowledge
Infrastructures to support
open research practices and
data sharing
“Knowledge infrastructures are complex
ecologies, adapting continuously to local and
global conditions and to changes in technology,
policy, and stakeholders”
Borgman, C. L., Darch, P. T., Sands, A. E., Pasquetto, I. V., Golshan, M. S., Wallis, J.
C., & Traweek, S. (2015). Knowledge infrastructures in science: data, diversity, and
digital libraries. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 16(3-4), 207–227.
http://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-015-0157-z
National
governments must
commit to
supporting science
and development
locally
If effective steps to secure the permanence of e-infrastructures are
not taken soon, we will risk having biological data, which are
currently organized and made available globally, once again
inaccessible. In the case of Brazil, speciesLink is in immediate peril of
disappearing. Brazil is one of the most diverse countries in the planet
[18], holding ~19% of all existing plant species [19]; thus, speciesLink
is not only of interest to Brazilian people and government anymore
but has acquired importance in the global scenario as well. Not only
will the hundreds of thousands of users of this system miss this
crucial research and policy infrastructure, but the social scientific
network linked to the e-infrastructure may lose strength.
PLOS Biology | DOI:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002204 July 23, 2015
What kind of Knowledge
Infrastructures do we need to
support truly universal Open
Science?
Periphery
Walled Garden
Global Knowledge Commons
Centre
Periphery
Practice
Principles
Inclusion
Open Access
Knowledge as a
Public Good
Open Data
Open
Science
Rights to Research
for Social Justice
Doing Science
Openly
& Collaboratively
Policy
Knowing Differently
Innovation
Funding
Infrastructure
Intellectual
Property
Incentive
Overarching Framework:
Governance and Sustainability ?
Thank you!
Chan@utsc.utoronto.ca
@lesliekwchan
http://www.ocsdnet.org