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Elisabeth Stark on Open Science and the role of the Office of the Vice President Research

23. April 2021 | HBZ | Keine Kommentare |

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Professor Elisabeth Stark was elected as the new Vice President Research at UZH in January 2021 and is thus also responsible for the Open Science office, among other things. The topic of Open Science is now becoming more important than ever among researchers, not least because of UZH’s future Open Science Policy.

Elisabeth Stark, Professor of Romance Linguistics (Image: Sandra Stamm)

Within the area of Open Science, Vice President Stark identifies three important tasks that her Office will need to address: First, to drive forward the strategic decisions for the university in close collaboration with services and the Office of Vice President Faculty Affairs and Scientific Information; second, to clarify and secure the financial resources for the implementation of Open Science goals; and third, to provide support to early-career researchers in the growing demands for Open Access publishing. “It is important that young researchers can publish where it is advantageous for their career,” says Vice President Stark. And to ensure that young researchers are not left behind, the required Open Access standards must also be recognized by university decision-makers, whether in the appointment committee for a new professorship or in the awarding of grants.

For her term in office, Vice President Stark would particularly like to see networked cooperation between the offices of the Vice Presidents and the service units, for example with the main library. Especially since the topic of Open Science not only affects her own office and research, but also affects the promotion of young scientists, scientific information, faculties, teaching and students. Because of the main library has a wealth of experience with publishing and knowledge of the diversity of the disciplines, it is an important source of information for researchers in order to support them in the area of Open Access and Open Data, while it can also take into account the differences between the disciplines. At the same time, Vice President Stark also sees the library as an active player that negotiates read-and-publish agreements with publishers, thus enabling UZH researchers to publish Open Access in certain journals of the most important publishers. It is often the case that these journals are not yet “pure” Open Access journals. It is therefore important to note that the offer to publish Open Access is limited. On the one hand, this is due to an agreed quota for Open Access publications per journal and, on the other hand, because not all journals of a publisher are included in the packages. “For researchers, the topic is very complex; the main library can make a fundamental contribution in explaining the current changes in the publication landscape to researchers,” Vice President Stark is convinced.

Communication in all directions is essential so that UZH’s Open Science stakeholders can work toward a common goal and involve researchers in the process.  However, communication must also be sought with external stakeholders – such as the smaller, specialized publishers in the humanities.

Abgelegt unter: Good to knowOpen AccessResearch Data
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