[open-science] Speaker for a virtual talk to a EU FP7 project cluster on Open Data licenses?

Thu Apr 7 15:49:08 UTC 2011

Hi all,

as some of you know, I recently started working on the ToxBank.net
project, which is going to facilitate data analysis in a cluster of
six
EU FP7 projects called SEURAT-1
(http://www.eurtd.com/seurat/kick-off/index.php). I would guess the
whole cluster involves in between 200 and 300 scientists. (SEURAT :=
Safety Evaluation Ultimately Replacing Animal Testing).

In this community too there is a lot of misunderstanding about Open
Data. Common issues involve questions like:

* do I have to make everything Open?
* can someone else make my data Open? (e.g. in the form of: "doesn't
the Consortium Agreement disallow me to make data Open from
partners?")
* what about attribution? "stealing" of data

And they generally do not see what advantages it has for them:

* more exposure of their work
* simplifying collaboration

Another aspect is the following. This week I learned that there exist
EU laws around toxicology that makes data a commodity, and that
companies that measured data, have a legal ownership of that data, so
that this has value when materials are sold (seriously!). It is
similar to like CO2-emission right markets. It was argued that this is
the EU solution to getting industry to do the required safety
analysis. At this moment I do not yet have the details on this, but
have requested them with the person whom I've spoken with about this.
(I'll follow up on this as info comes in.)

Clearly, this aspect doesn't make me happy, and EU regulation around
these kind of EU projects most certainly do not seem to make the
situation around Open Data more clear.

Now, there is a serious interest in the Data Analysis Working Group in
this SEURAT-1 cluster for a talk on Open Data, and how that works for
them when participating in EU projects.

Is there someone in the OKFN that could give such a virtual talk /
webinar to this public? Being part of the science working group, I
know a bit about things, but I am sure there are far more
knowledgeable people around.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

greetings,

Egon

-- 
Dr E.L. Willighagen
Postdoctoral Researcher
Institutet för miljömedicin
Karolinska Institutet (http://ki.se/imm)
Homepage: http://egonw.github.com/
LinkedIn: http://se.linkedin.com/in/egonw
Blog: http://chem-bla-ics.blogspot.com/
PubList: http://www.citeulike.org/user/egonw/tag/papers