It was interesting to attend the workshop on Open Science. I had good and bad remarks about it and I will start with the bad ones :).

I must say at some point I have heard a lot of «we need to…», «we must do…». Personally it seems like all this things are mentioned while we act blind to the real situation. The reality is that the scientific society is very tightly related to the politics. It is also a business-driven environment where the positive competitiveness shades away into «more money, less science». It all seems «good on paper» for naive scientists like us (the junior PhD students), while we experience the reality of the research «industry». That is the reality and maybe the reflection of the society – which is OK. Why trying to solve the unsolvable? More action, less talking….

The conversation about the technologies I found it very strange. Maybe I have mistaken, but there was a speaker who claimed that the AI is not ready and won’t be ready. What about this article from Nature ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1335-8). I found it very strange that we speak about science in very vague manner. Currently there are many technologies ready or almost ready to be used in the goal of creating Open Science, just not used. No institute invests the time in greater good and actually implementing the technologies (e.g., Blockchain, AI, Machine-learning, Big Data, etc.) into the Open Science idea, instead they are busy in racing for better research and better funding. Basically, technologies are ready and they are there, the lack of incentives makes them «not ready».

The idea of having Open Science for implementing inter-disciplinary data into research is a very good point. Maybe is the only way that this idea can be implemented for greater good of the science in general and more benefit for the institution. It is almost impossible that each institution can perform good research in every field, but supporting other institution (with open data, access to experimental areas, open publications) can benefit for both of them. Creating spin-offs out of multiple institutions is maybe the best approach to benefit the Open Science.

«Open Science is not free access». I agree with it. We can make everything accessible, we can allow access to everyone, and then a result of a complete chaos. Regulation is needed to make the scientific environment more organized, efficient and positively competitive. We have the technology to do it, we lack the will.

I haven’t met peering scientists that would not support this idea for the sake of science. My work is into providing technology of exchanging and collaboration between administrative domains, so I passively provide the future technology for it. However, I am not convinced that the scientific environment would soon change into «more science, less money» and that is okey as long as we keep the conversation open that changes need to be made. I hope the initiativ will bring more benefits and better environment for the future scientists.