Open Science Movement
Interview
From a Sep 26, 2011 interview by Dr. Barry Starr from QUEST Northern California.
Joseph Jackson:
"What is the Open Science movement trying to achieve that the current scientific system can't?
By definition, to function, science is supposed to be Open. Indeed, science is arguably humanity's greatest achievement, our most successful, Open Process, for discovering the truths about our universe and then harnessing that knowledge for the benefit of all mankind. In contrast to other human processes (politics, which is an intrinsically contentious undertaking focused on controlling and distributing scarce resources), Science is supposed to be an objective, essentially collaborative endeavor, in which, even when competing, all participants are building on the efforts of one another to improve our collective understanding of reality. In practice, of course science has always been subject to manipulations, government or corporate agendas, distortions, human biases, and other messy realities.
Since the 1980's a series of extremely troubling trends have converged to threaten the very foundations of science and innovation at precisely the time when we need to harness the power of distributed collaboration to solve global problems. There has been an unprecedented explosion of patenting (and the advent of patents for software and biological materials and processes that were never considered patentable subject matter). There has been an erosion of public trust in science, and the institutions of science are under increasing strain (be they government funding agencies like the NIH whose budgets are shrinking, or major research universities which appear increasingly schizophrenic as they struggle to reconcile their ostensible public benefit missions with intense pressure to commercialize technologies developed largely with public funds).
We have the chance to adopt new models and build new institutions better suited to conducting distributed, massively data driven, collaborative science in the 21st century. This means we have to change the incentive structures and reputation systems that govern science; moving away from old metrics like impact factor (which has a near death grip on scientist's career prospects) and toward new ways of measuring reputation that reward participation in other kinds of scientific activity that are new of critical importance (commenting on articles after publication,scientific blogging and communication to the public, data curation, and more).
- Do you see Open Science replacing the current system or complementing it?
In the long run, Open Science will transform the way science is done, enhancing the best aspects of science, while helping correct potential abuses and distortions. There are many interrelated components of Open Science, and I don't expect everyone to embrace every part of the vision. Rather, there is a continuum of openness and we're exploring how to improve each dimension of our innovation system by increasing collaboration where and when we can. Quite often, people seize on one aspect or particular argument about Open Science and may have a defensive reaction. They may have a very strongly held or even instinctive position about the role of the patent system or the sanctity of peer review and protest that "X" reform will never work because of "Y and Z" when in fact, all of these components are evolving together: Open Science isn't naively proposing that we abolish a particular institution while holding everything else constant…of course this won't happen overnight.
There is immense inertia surrounding the way science is conducted, measured, and rewarded. Many understand that it is time to embrace change; let's just hope that we don't reprove Max Planck's dictum once again in this context: "Science advances one funeral at a time."
- What do you see as the dangers of having people able to do biological experiments in their garage? The benefits?
The idea of garage biology has received tremendous media attention in recent years, as journalists conjure overhyped images both positive and negative ( garage hobbyist as economic savior creating the next billion dollar enterprise or curing cancer vs. the crazed "biohacker" terrorist unleashing a pandemic).
The reality is that we are experiencing a profound shift in humanity's relationship to technology of all kinds, and biotechnology is no exception. Tremendous economic benefits are unlocked when technologies become accessible to a wide pool of innovators and users who can develop new applications with them and ultimately build new products and services.
Freedom of scientific inquiry is vital to our society and economy. As terrifying as the thought of garage biology gone wrong is, it is unlikely that regulation is the solution to this concern. Instead, restricting the ability of responsible individuals and groups of independent citizen scientists to conduct research, will not make us safer; though it will make us poorer, both intellectually and materially." (http://science.kqed.org/quest/2011/09/26/the-open-science-movement/)
Discussion
A New Social Contract for (Open) Science
Alessandro Delfanti, in the article: Open science, a complex movement, at http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/03/Jcom0903%282010%29E/Jcom0903%282010%29E.pdf
"Science must be open and accessible, and diffusion of knowledge should not be limited by patents and
copyrights. After the wave of legal, political and social clashes that shook science because of the rise of
intellectual property rights for scientific knowledge and data, now we need to “update the social contract
for science.” This was the subtitle of the first edition of the Open Science Summit (OSS),1 a conference
held at the University of California in Berkeley from July 29th to 31st. The OSS gathered scientists,
researchers, social entrepreneurs, non-profits and science policy experts to discuss the strategies and
possible evolutions of the open science movement.
But how do we define Open Science? According to Jason Hoyt of Mendeley, science is open when “it is available to any one in the world to do whatever they like with it.” Yale’s Victoria Stodden tried to refine this position: “open code is as much an important part of this as much as open data”. Stodden's proposal is related to reproducibility: a publishing standard which includes analytical tools, raw data and experimental protocols, giving any scientist the possibility of reproducing a colleague’s experiment. But, as Stodden puts it, “we are not updating the social contract, what we're doing is returning to the scientific method which has been around for hundreds of years. It is what a scientist is supposed to do.” Yet there is a cultural problem: “our adaptation to the technological tools for openness and sharing is not happening fast enough, and is bringing about a credibility crisis” of science. And there is also a generational problem: “younger scientists want to share everything. Older leaders must not just give examples, but also try to provide tools for them to be open.” This means that we need to forge new legal and societal tools for open science. But we also need to protect young researchers from the “existential crisis” they experience when they switch from a world in which everything is shared, i.e., social networks, to one in which knowledge is private. But can we just rely on technological solutions and on a revival of 20th century open science culture?
Michael Neilsen, researcher and blogger, argued that we need “to create new ways for scientists to create reputation, based on new tools,” since the incentive system that drives the scientist’s work (to publish in peer reviewed journals) prevent the community from adopting new solutions. “Today's subsidies prevent science from adopting new technologies and new solutions - scientists are motivated to reveal discoveries in older media. Therefore the first open science revolution - the sharing of results in journals - is now hindering the second open science revolution.” Now we need a new system which distributes benefits to those scientists who decide to openly share their knowledge and data. This approach seems to be more attuned to the current needs of open science: along science history, its communication and publishing systems have always developed in order to respond to the incentives society gives them.
What could an updated social contract look like, then? In Berkeley there was no room for an explicit reflection on the relation between science and society and the role of communication technologies and practices. Nevertheless, judging from the talks at OSS, in the future companies will have an even bigger role in scientific research. Open sharing of knowledge and data could become just another business model for corporate R&D. According to Stanford’s Drew Endy, “in 15 to 30 years something really interesting will develop between these two poles: FLOSS (Free, libre and open source software) and synthetic biology.” Both companies and individuals will be able to make key innovations outside the walls of universities. And in Berkeley there were a lot of small companies, foundations, non-profits, social entrepreneurs and start ups which use open source models of innovation.
We don’t know if this emerging movement will succeed in providing crucial scientific innovation. But there is at least one thing those actors are providing: a new, broader meaning of “open science”, which is not only the free circulation and sharing of information within the scientific community. An important part of the open science movement is more and more represented by people who innovate and conduct research outside the boundaries of scientific institutions. Their radical claims for openness and access to scientific knowledge is heating up a debate on the boundaries of contemporary science: on one side, citizens participation in its decisional processes; on the other, in the scientific enterprise itself. A few examples presented in Berkeley include DIYbio the network of garage biologists from which projects such as OpenPCR and the community lab Biocurious are stemming; MyDaughtersDna, an open platform for the sharing of information about genetic pathologies to researchers, physicians and patients; the Pink Army Cooperative, a non-profit co-op with an open source attitude which works on personalized medicine for cancer - “the first DIY pharmaceutical company.”
New forms of funding research – or, if you prefer, new ways of appropriating its results – are fueling open science, and the old scientists' culture is not enough to explain the new configuration of science and society interactions. The picture drawn during the OSS is a vital and dynamic movement from a societal and technological point of view. At the same time it is a complex and diverse movement. Academic and industrial science seem unable to fulfill its needs. There are new and emerging actors playing a growing role in its development, and also new societal configurations and new technological tools. If we want to avoid determinism, we can not just advocate for the widespread adoption of open platforms and licenses and for a return to 20th century open science culture. We need to dig into the science and society relationship and keep on asking questions about appropriation, power, privatization and freedom. (http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/03/Jcom0903%282010%29E/Jcom0903%282010%29E.pdf)