News blog

UNESCO to make its publications available free of charge as part of a new Open Access policy | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNESCO will make its digital publications available to millions of people around the world free-of-charge with an open license. Following a decision by the Organization’s Executive Board in April, UNESCO has become the first member of the United Nations to adopt such an Open Access policy for its publications. The new policy means that anyone will be able to download, translate, adapt, distribute and re-share UNESCO publications and data without paying.

Registration is now open for the 5th Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing | Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, OASPA, is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 5th Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing (COASP) which will be held in Riga, Latvia, September 18th – 20th, 2013. Registration and accommodation information for COASP 2013 can found on the conference website:http://oaspa.org/conference/

Towards Open Access to Government Science: The Obama Administration Takes Some Important Steps – The Equation

This week, the National Research Council is holding public comment meetings on increasing public access to federally funded research—both access to the data and publications. We encouraged the UCS Science Network to weigh in with their own ideas on how the government can increase public access to its science. After all, this is the science that we all pay for through our tax dollars.

Hanging out with “We the Geeks” | The White House

The White House is kicking off “We the Geeks,” a new series of Google+ Hangouts to highlight the future of science, technology, and innovation here in the United States.
Note: Watch the first ‘We the Geeks” Hangout on Thursday, May 16, at 2:00 p.m. EDT on WhiteHouse.gov and on the White House Google+ page. You can join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #WeTheGeeks.

Video: The importance of publishing negative studies

Keith Flaherty is Director of Developmental Therapeutics at the Massachusetts Cancer Center. In his talk he addressed the benefits of publishing negative results. He focused his talk on therapies for cancer, in particular melanoma, since that’s the area he is most familiar with. (…) In closing, he emphasized that publishing negative data in preclinical and clinical studies would save time and money, and could open up new pathways of investigation.
See the video here.

Crowdfunding: Another Form of Science Outreach

Science crowdfunding changes the equation by adding a powerful new incentive for scientists to engage the public with science: the potential for raising money for research directly from the public. What makes crowdfunding such a powerful potential lever to connect science and society is that the amount of money that can be raised in this way is directly proportional to the size of the audience that has been built.
Nature. SoapboxScience Blog.

Conference re:publica 13 – Berlin, Germany.

From 6 – 8 May 2013, re:publica will be turning the digital society IN/SIDE/OUT for the seventh time with the help of a wide range of speakers and perspectives. At the same time, it invites all guests to turn their output into input and vice-versa.
The Conference is questioning the following:
While we were always sure that at some point everyone would use the mechanisms offered by Web2.0, the question remains: Who profits in the end? Will citizens embrace obligations of governments and businesses to become more transparent, while at the same time tolerate the non-transparency of those companies which form the structures of the internet? Or will we soon pull the plug and return to a place where privacy is tangible again? Will we replace the INternet with an OUTernet?
See the program here. Livestream here. See also this interview on the occasion of re:publica with Raegan MacDonald, canadian data activist and senior policy analyst at access - mobilizing for global digital freedom. FAZ online. In German.