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At the end of January, the International Research Data Rights Summit was held at Sorbonne University in Paris. During the summit, nine networks of research-intensive universities had the opportunity to sign the Sorbonne Declaration, which advocates making research data as openly accessible as possible. Among them was the League of European Research Universities (LERU), to which the University of Zurich belongs.

Among other things, the networks have committed themselves to encouraging their universities to share research data in the spirit of Open Data, to promoting the curation of data, and to creating recognition for those researchers who share their data under the FAIR principles and with open licenses. The declaration also calls on governments to adopt a legal framework to promote Open Data, and to provide the necessary funding.

Nine networks, and thus more than 160 of the world’s most renowned research-intensive universities, have signed the Sorbonne Declaration, thus taking a clear position on the opening of research data:

• Association of American Universities (AAU)
• African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA)
• Coordination of French Research-Intensive Universities (CURIF)
• German U15
• League of European Research Universities (LERU)
• RU11 Japan
• Russell Group
• The Group of Eight (Go8)
• U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities

More information on the Sorbonne Declaration can be found here.