Open Asia is an initiative aimed at enhancing engagement with Open Science principles within higher education institutions in India and Malaysia. A consortium of nine partners from Europe and Asia seek to foster a culture of transparency, collaboration, and accessibility in scientific research. By leveraging best practices from the European Union, Open Asia aims to address local socioeconomic needs and challenges through Open Science.
Open science principles to bridge the digital divide
The importance of digital infrastructure and connectivity is steadily increasing in today's modern world. Open Science, as a movement, can support the growth of the digital economy, enhance connectivity, and shape institutional policies to bridge the digital divide. Especially in the remote areas of India and Malaysia, improving Open Science policies and practices will enhance the significance of higher education institutes as poles of excellence and increase standards in society. Along with coordinating regulatory approaches and legislative support, Open Asia aims to drive the adoption of Open Science principles in the academic community.
Addressing the challenges faced at national, institutional, and individual levels
The Open Asia Consortium aims for:
- Promotion of open science culture: Fostering a culture of Open Science by promoting its principles and building consensus among key stakeholders.
- Enhancing the transition to open science practices: Supporting universities in transitioning to sustainable Open Science practices by promoting findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reuse of digital assets, e.g., FAIR principles.
- Advancing open science infrastructure: Developing and implementing infrastructure within universities that supports digital tools and platforms for Open Science practices.
- Embedding open science at the university and national level: Working with policymakers and regulatory bodies to create an enabling environment for Open Science.
- Fostering citizen science initiatives: The project seeks to foster citizen science initiatives by establishing SCIENCE SHOP 2.0. This involves engaging the public in scientific research and promoting the co-creation of knowledge
Creating open science hubs for collaboration and training
The research approach adopted by Open Asia is centered on collaboration and practical training. The project proposes the establishment of a network of local Open Science Hubs (OS-Hubs) that serve as central points for identifying obstacles hindering the adoption of Open Science practices. These hubs provide the necessary support to foster cultural change at the university level. By facilitating collaboration and sharing best practices, the OS-Hubs play a vital role in driving the adoption of Open Science principles in the academic community. The approach combines bottom-up innovations with top-down incentives and policies, ensuring a comprehensive and effective implementation of Open Science practices.
Athena’s role
The role of Athena is to inspire, and to provide (knowledge) support to the project partners in their aim to establish and/or strengthen public engagement activities in research and education within their respective universities. The project partners will establish science shop within their own universities and organize engagement workshops with and within the local communities.
Athena provides training and inspiration sessions and offers support to university staff in the respective countries. This includes visits to the various institutes and a capacity building workshop of 5 days in the Netherlands. Athena also co-develops a qualitative survey aimed to get greater insights into the public engagement projects going on within partner institutes and the citizen science and public engagement activities in the various countries, as well as a quantitative survey on citizen science and public engagement activities. Finally, based on all lessons learnt Athena develops recommendations on Citizen Science for each country.
