Open Science in a World of AI, Trust, and Sovereignty: Launching the OpenAIRE 2026-2028 Strategy

Um and thank you all for joining and taking the time. We really appreciate it. So today um we're going to be presenting the new strategy of open air. We have this is our second one in a row and we're proud um of uh for this because asy will explain uh it has been a community effort a joint community effort but so without further ado I would like to introduce the speakers and um perhaps you have heard of I knur I mean I always pronounce your name not well after all these years. uh and Eloy Rodriguez. So uh Eningga and Eloy have been co-chairing uh the open air open science strategy standing committee and has been our past president for the for for the past three four years. uh the the executive board um and they are the ones who drove uh this this effort and uh took it to the end and we're proud to have the the strategy uh before u before uh at at uh the way we will present it in and will present the the priorities and the community aspects. I will be presenting a bit on the more um actionable items at the end and then we have invited Moya uh Kotar from an open air noad from Slovenia from the beginning of open air to provide her views on on the strategy and how it applies at the national level. So um after that a discussion will follow. Uh this is the aim and and and [clears throat] let let us be clear the aim is not just only to present the strategy but also to have an active discussion with you because we care about your views about your feedback and as we know open science and everything is a moving target. So we really need to have your feedback. Before um starts, I think what we we have a short video from our current um chair of the executive uh board uh Yuri uh Bolt. So maybe um as a welcome uh maybe Mali can play that. Mari, Maril Lee, Maril, I'm sorry we cannot hear you. >> Um, I am sharing the video. It's not >> Yes, but it's not the sound. >> Okay. Sorry. Can you hear? >> No, Mari, we cannot hear. So, I think it's not time to fix it now. If you can try to fix it, you know, towards the end, we will switch a bit the the order. So, without further ado, okay, Yuri, you know, has to virtually wait and uh for his turn and uh Envia, the floor is yours. Marie, can we share the >> Yeah, the slides >> presentation, the slides. >> Super. So, um happy to share this uh new strategy together with Eloy and Natalia and to to you all. Um because we already had uh a strategy of course before this one and we want to uh share how important it is to us because it all uh comes down to our vision and our mission of course which I would like to remind you of which is transform society through validated scientific knowledge and allow researchers, educators, funders, civil servants and industry to find ways to make science useful for themselves, their working environments and society. And we do that through our mission to shift scholarly communication towards openness and transparency. It's all through our strategy of course as well mobilizing RNI actors to co-develop co-invest and assume co-ownership of an open scholarly communication ecosystem. So everything we do is with this in in our back the back of our heads of course this is the baseline of what we do in open air. And so with this uh vision and mission, we already had a first strategy in the previous three years uh which I will not go through because that is not the the thing we want to share here right now. We have done this first three-year strategy and it really proved to be uh fundamental to lay foundations uh to establish open air as a cornerstone of open science uh in Europe. uh we build that infrastructure, we build the graph, um we uh we collaborate with others to achieve this strategy. Um but of course strategies need to change, need to adapt to the current situation and that is what we did with the new strategy. So with a new strategy um we looked at the current uh context and the situation which even changed while we were discussing what the new strategy would be um because we see that RNI uh research innovation are at a crossroads. Um there's really much going on uh in the world in Europe that influences how we should approach scholarly communication in this uh in this world. And uh just to to highlight a few things that we took into account when shaping the strategy is first of all of course this uh geopolitical shift and uh the focus on research sovereignty. Um we see that in dual use and how uh open science results are being used within different countries and about sharing different countries is not that obvious uh anymore. Um we see that uh countries that regions converse into sovereignty research sovereignty and how to deal with that. How do we share know technology knowledge etc. So is um is open still global uh that is a question [clears throat] we need to ask ourselves. We see the the UNESCO for example taking uh big uh steps here. How can everyone follow? But of course interpretation in each uh region can be very different. So how do we as open air um uh work within that? Then of course there's also research security and valuesbased uh cooperation. Um is um so this means will openness enable um there's something wrong here. Sorry. Can open sides be safe? Um uh that's uh also important to consider. Uh we have to make sure that for example private data doesn't leak out. Uh how do we manage our systems that people can trust them? Um so this is also where we want to play uh an important an important role. Um, next of course it's everywhere about AI uh certainly gen AI and the AI agents as they are uh being used now and AI skills etc. uh that's that's a disruption and there's a dis digital transition in science. We have to take into account again will openness enable or undermine trust uh how do we trust information that you find through AI systems? How do they get their information from our systems etc. Um this uh it can be very opaque sometimes how this works like in a black box. So um you have to make sure that it doesn't undermine research quality and integrity. So um that is uh a third one I want to raise. Now but over there we we main we work as European Union as a context is an important one and we see a policy conversions over there. I would like to highlight like the letter report and the drug report in the letter report where you had this fifth freedom uh and uh for research. So um this is a not this is a um a statement a report that we really have to take into account when we develop a strategy. Um so open science it is not a siloed agenda. It's embedded across digital industrial and research strategies. So um and then sometimes yet we see that distribution is uneven. What what kind of infrastructures do you have where what kind of knowledge access do you have where uh so there's still a lot to do um on that level. There is a global momentum and there are diverging uh models. So we have competing visions of open. How do you define open science? What do we what are we talking about? What about open infrastructures? Um and in some cases you you see that open science is mainly translated as transparent um and trustworthy which is good but sometimes the open part is uh forgotten. So how can you make sure that the this um with this context in mind how do we operate as open air? And the last one I wanted to mention is of course uh the European open science cloud um which is also an important factor in in the way we uh make knowledge interoperable. Uh certainly if you look at an infrastructural um and uh infrastructural um level uh you see that there is uh a lot of collaboration and it's uh Yoska's designed and I hear um I hear something can can everyone um turn down their microphones thank you um so this European open science cloud is also a factor where open air has an important role to play. Now with these with this landscape in mind and of course there's more than only this uh we wanted to highlight these uh six factors uh we uh drafted a strategy and with we I mean that within uh the standing committee of open science strategies where all our members uh can join uh we started to discuss what should be in the next five years strategy. Uh so we came up um with the the priorities we would like to see addressed and Eloy will go into that. Uh we we um consulted of course with the understanding committees of open air like uh in training uh outreach communication and also uh services of course technical infrastructure. So uh we had a big conversation about around this in our general assemblies and and and that uh and then had a final approval in the GA uh in our last general uh assembly. So and this is the result of a community effort as you can see uh we shaped it together. It's it's a strategy that enables us to see how open air can uh help the the members and open science to achieve their goals and vice versa. So how can we help each other? That is uh such an important part of uh being open air uh being an infrastructure and being a network of people and organizations and uh that is the context of the strategy the strategy that now Eloy will explain. >> Thank you very much Inga and good good morning everyone. And it's uh good to to see you all here on this launching event and as uh Inga already said so we uh from the the landscape analysis and through the this uh uh uh collective and community efforts we have identified uh uh five strategic uh priorities but uh uh those priorities uh they were also uh informed Then and they they they were founded on a on a also on a position on an open position uh about uh research intelligence and research intelligence as a public infrastructure. uh research intelligence now is uh shapes uh uh everything how research is assessed, founded and uh reused increasingly through AIdriven systems and but at the same time much of this intelligence is still uh produced and controlled uh by closed opac systems and this is really a challenge and the risk if uh if research is funded as a public good the the the the intelligence that is derived from it uh must be also governed by by the public uh uh uh in the public interest and so uh uh uh openness of the outputs uh alone is not sufficient. The the systems that aggregate uh uh uh and uh interpret and operationalize research information must uh uh be also uh uh uh uh trusted, open and and and accountable. And for this that purpose uh uh open air has uh produced a a paper a position paper on on research intelligence and as I mentioned this uh uh this uh published position paper and the link to it is here on the slide uh as as uh also work as a foundation for the the strategic priorities that we have uh uh identify on the document and uh and Those uh uh uh strategic uh priorities that we have identified uh uh uh they were uh um uh uh designed to to to reinforce our strengths uh in in the open scholar communication ecosystem and also address uh the emerging uh challenges and and and deliver uh uh value to to to our community. They they represent our commit commitment not only into maintaining uh uh the position of open air as a open science in infrastructure as the leading open science infrastructure but also to to uh our commitment to to shape the future to shape a more open trusted and intelligent future for scholic communication in Europe and and beyond and beyond. So and those are the the the five and I will uh uh go over quickly each of them. So the the the first one is is about uh uh trusted open scholarly communication uh uh uh infrastructures. We need to we want to to drive uh a European shift to to make open infrastructure the default uh uh uh choice for in all national and institutional research uh uh uh uh uh uh strategies. uh science has become deeply digital uh datadriven and increasingly AI AI mediated and uh and schol communication influencers are are really uh uh strategic assets but uh trust is paramount on that uh uh researchers and policy makers must be confident that uh the the platforms that uh they rely on uh or they depend on are transparent, accountable and serve public uh uh values. And for that purpose, open infrastructures are essential to to sustain this uh that trust and drive the innovation uh to to enable a next uh generation research that will be AI of course AI systems and also new forms of uh uh research assessment uh uh in ways that uh proprietary and OPAC systems cannot do. So uh to to work on on this direction and for each of the priorities you will see on the next slides we have identified six strategic uh uh action lines. I will not go on on on each of those but you you can can read it there. I think Natalia probably will uh uh uh focus in in some of them on on her part. Uh the next uh the second priority is about uh championing uh responsible AI in in uh research. Uh we all know that AI is uh rapidly reshaping uh uh the way research is conducted, published and assessed. uh and and open infrastructures are already adapting uh uh embedding AI into their own processes and expanding the the offer uh uh uh uh to to offer content to to uh in in a AI uh uh ready manner. Uh but the strategic uh uh challenge here is is ensuring that uh this transformation is also uh guided by the principles of open science. It's uh it's this is critical. This means to to to to steering AI use in a direction that supports rather than undermines the the trust and again trust is really paramount and transversal to in in all this conversation. So uh so the the the the the uh LLMs the science uh student LLMs must be grounded in uh uh high quality uh uh scholarly data verified uh to preventation and biases and and uh uh and the the the the um uh uh uh a agent AI also need to be governed and in uh as as an infrastructure transparent interoperable and accountable. And to to work on on all these aspects, we will uh uh open air will work through four strategic uh action plans that are uh uh uh uh uh also expressed on these slides to so promoting alignment of AI uh with with uh re open science values. Uh uh use open scholar data to shape ethical AI for research. uh making scholarly communication infrastructures uh uh AI u uh ready for AI enabled research and and this also very important support community capacity and shared governance uh uh for AI in research and this is also uh uh related uh uh with other uh of our priorities. The third priority is about uh monitoring. It's really uh critical uh uh it's a strategic uh requirement uh monitor the progress of of open science and uh and this is also uh uh very important for ensuring accountability for the public investment that our societies and funders and citizens are doing in in in science but also for understanding the impact of policies and for making evidence-based decisions regarding the the shape shaping the future of European research. Uh uh uh there are already other initiatives like the UNESCO frame framework and the OSK observatory that that are gaining momentum and the the demand for for uh structured comparative data is higher than ever. So, but it's also very important that uh these are uh also a concerted effort that to align these different uh efforts and and and build a truly global and holistic and also interoperable uh uh and impactful monitoring ecosystem. And regarding this uh priority uh uh uh open air, we have also identified five uh uh strategic uh uh action lines that uh uh that are related with uh developing uh policy align indicators, aligning the different uh and connect the different monitoring initiatives. uh integrating monitoring into decision making, co-designing the monitoring tools with the community and uh and reinforce open air as a strong as a um a trusted monitoring infrastructure. >> [clears throat] >> The fourth uh uh priority is is uh also uh of course very uh central and critical and in a way it also supports all all the others is about capacity building cap building capacity for a skilled open science uh community. Uh uh so it's it's uh really important that that uh that the the the community is really uh uh uh equipped with with the the the knowledge and the capacity to to to to incorporate open science in daily practice and open science practice is really uh uh uh uh h are very uh inter uh connected with the major transformation in research. So this interconnectedness brings a a wider range of stakeholders into the game from researchers to data steward to legal expert to university leaders, policy m makers and each of those require uh tailored training that uh reflects their needs and this new uh kind of complexity and to to to meet this growing uh uh diversity of demand uh uh uh on a sustainable way. Europe must uh uh move beyond uh projectbased training and and so uh the priority is try to build a coordinated scalable and sustainable training ecosystem that can provide the the the right skills uh to to the right people at the right time. And uh on this area we have uh also identified uh six strategic uh action lines that we will work on the on the next uh um uh uh uh three three years uh from uh uh enriching the the the training uh portfolio uh advancing sustainable and scalable training models, innovating and diversifying the the the the learning approaches. uh strengthen and coordinate the national training networks uh deliver uh uh coordinated training for all stakeholders and promote the the the upate the uptake of trading. And finally, [clears throat] the last uh the last uh priority, and this is one of I I would say the the the new uh uh areas on our strategy that was kind of uh implicit but not explicit on the previous strategy is this one of uh ensuring legal legal clarity for responsible open uh science. This shift from uh to to to digital and a artificial intelligence power research has uh uh has had an impact on blurring the boundaries between openness, intellectual property, competitiveness and securities. And uh uh while open science promotes uh sharing and reuse, uh researchers and and uh and institutions operate in a legal and geopolitical context that we already mentioned on the on the landscape analogy that demands clarity on what can be open, protected or controlled. And there is a this uncertainty around copyright, data protection and uh and IP rights and uh creates friction that may slow down collaboration and innovation. So legal uh uh uh clarity is foundational for for uh safeguarding researcher rights uh enable responsible innovation and en ensure that uh opens European open science infrastructures can compete globally while aligning with our democratic values and on this uh last priority we will work in four uh uh strategic uh uh action alliance uh so boosting institutional legal readiness iness protect open scholarly outputs and enable ethical reuse embed uh embedding legal compliance uh into scholy communication services and aligning IP strategies with open science principles. So these are the five uh uh priorities and each of the priorities with some action lens and uh I think now Natalia will uh uh go over uh some of those. >> Thank you Elo. Uh I think no um thank you for providing this is reach quite rich. I will go very briefly so we can have room room for discussion on the action lines because uh from from our previous strategy is that uh we had a strong belief that uh you know a strategy without at least writing down the action line so we can you know turn them from strategy to action um is is not is not very much. So uh the action lines you know based on these five priorities we have um we have um divided them across the three pillars of open air because open air uh works in three pillars. First is infrastructure services the other is training and the other is network and policies. So um I will be presenting very very briefly. The strategy is there for you to go over and read and let us know your your feedback. So uh if we talk about infrastructure and services okay we we say that open science infrastructure first of all is the AI readiness and why do we focus a lot on the AI because you know for us it's not a buzz word for us is that we see things moving speedily you know full force ahead with AI AI in the LLMs AI the agentic AI and we need to be prepared and not only open air as the open air graph or our the services that we have centrally but what we believe is that all the repositories and institutional systems and the national systems they have to be there. So what we are doing is you know if we stick to the basics we we we we we stay at the open air guidelines which has been the spearhead of interoperability for open air for a long time and what we want to do is to solidify and adapt them to the new to the new uh era AI or not okay because there are a lot of things since we last revisit them uh so what we are doing is we're going to be forming we are forming a global group in order to move them to the next generation. So uh with that what we hope one of the key aspects with that we will be looking at because the open air guidelines is the way uh data sources interoperate with a global community is we will be looking at fairness and AI readiness and then uh if you have read uh with core and liberosy strategy is that we want to take bit by bit on their component by component and put it into action And one of the key things here is the scientific knowledge graphs because you know we said you know we know that the community has been going into graphs for for a long time in Europe. We see the the the institutional P systems we see the national P systems. We see the thematic knowledge graphs scientific knowledge graphs. We have the overarching open uh scholarly communication graph. So what we need is to make sure that uh we are working with this together. The effort has started through the previous strategy and the previous projects that we have been involved in with uh the RDA SKG interoperability framework. SKG is the scientific knowledge graph but now is that you know we need to populate we need to uh we need to extend to more communities. uh as the lawy said is that responsible pipelines for AI and LLM training and then we need to um we need to see that there are two aspects on that one is a generative AI so how can the open air community and the scientific literature that we have gathered you know through our institutional repositories feeds into this um large model training so and in what terms and what are the terms that we the community put in and then on the other hand is on the consumer part. We see the agentic AI everything you know if you follow the trends everything is is is done by by agents and uh and what we need is to make sure that we are ready for our services to be consumed with with this. Just just give me a moment. Just give me Okay. So um so this is this is how uh it goes. Then uh then it's from research management to research assessment. So there is the whole cycle that we know uh and we have been evangelizing for a long time now is that we know that you cannot have an op a research infrastructure for research management without you know with all the changes that we're doing without you know adapting the changes in research assessment we know all of the quara and what is being done so what we are saying is that we need as a community to have all of the services that we have and to see how we we capture the whole thing the whole cycle. So uh Argos you know we we have the Argos and the open CDMP service which is for data management plans but we know that the world is shifting towards a more automated way and planning cannot be self-reliant without actually you know linking the planning to the management. So this is an effort that we want to do and hopefully uh we will be able to do it you know with uh some AI automation there. The open air graph we are this is the spearhead and the core of the open air services uh platform. Uh what we want to push it forward also as a part of the uh the Barcelona declaration is an open alternative for biblioctometrics. And what I would like to say to that because uh uh this is something that Europe has to really look at this as its assets. It's a European asset because it is related to the digital soarity. So countries and institutions they should be supporting the open air graph and they should be using and they should be helping build the open air graph as one of the European assets based on that. Now going to the uh monitoring and research assessment. Uh we have this new service my research folio. So for portfolio narrative CVs where we are piloting things based on the open air graph which gives us an orchid uh which gives us the quantitative parts is how can we uh um how can we hook this to the qualitative part which is you know the narrative CVs or whatever you know uh stories that people want or the impact CVS. So this is something new that we are trying and we really you know we're really optimistic about it. So how can the open science you know using the quantitative uh shift also the the the the qualitative research assessment the monitor services that we have in the US observatory we have them as evidence policy and it's in our goal to strengthen them with indicators that are um that bring consensus to the community with functionalities that link Again the key part the key uh goal here is to link also in monitor the the quantitative and the qualitative. In EOS observatory we have managed to do that because in EOS observatory we have the open air graph but also we have a narrative from the countries through surveys online surveys and stories from the country. So this is something that what we want to show is that uh about monitoring and indicators and assessment is that uh it's a mutually reinforcement uh between the two parts and then of course uh as as it was said by Ly and we are very much integrated into EOS. uh we know now that there is the the the many countries are uh funding open science through EOS nodes and manyatic and open air is there. We have um uh made a synergy with a packact with operas to build an open scholarly communication uh commons node. So how can we uh offer uh have a common offer of our services together in the community? But also uh the open air graph is one of the federating capabilities in all of the EOS nodes connecting all the the research artifacts and the services that uh they offer. Again when we build when we say about infrastructure and now you know I'm having my other hat as the qu open infrastructures for research responsible research assessment group the chair is that open infrastructure must be trusted reliable and professionally managed. So we have created there a bunch of you know whole documents and checklists how you know the open infrastructure and in this case the open air graph for us as we're building it how can it be used reliably because uh uh in many cases we talk about open infrastructures when we talk about the graph we're talking about open infrastructure that is being used for uh for research assessments and that is really you know governing how you know careers are assessed or institutions get their funding. So what we need to do is to say here you know quality uh so through reliability and trust. So those are the things that we will be looking at and there's going to be a lot of technical and nontechnical work in order to make sure that the graph is uh is a response to what we uh said in quara now skills policy and community capacity. Okay. So this is one of the strong points of open air and a lot of our members they do care about it. So what we are saying is that technology succeeds when people skills and policies involve together. So skills is something that uh you know we need to uh to do that apart from our usual training for open science researchers, managers, repository teams and policy makers. what we have piloted already now I think it's ongoing this week is an open science um I wouldn't call it leadership at this point in time but an open science training for policy makers which we aspire to turn into a leadership academy so this is our testing and we're going to be putting a lot of effort in there and the idea is that uh yes we need to educate the researchers the managers and the data stewards and the librarians But what we have found in all these past years is that there is a gap in skills on the decision makers and this is where we are we are uh uh we are targeting open plato you all know European training uh platform so we want to uh to to solidify extend and allow nonopen air uh you know other other other communities to use it training as a service model And then uh we are one of the key things uh for addressing priority five is we're gonna uh create a legal advisory hub as our uh uh uh policy counselor proto call it this is going to be the technolal hub so the idea there is to see how we can collect all the things that we have done around policies around legal around IP there's going to be a hub where we can uh you know people can come and and and and find all the information and we can offer the support uh that is of course related to the support for copyright and sovereignity and research assessment reform. So this is a lot of legal partners there. Now uh finalizing this is building you know how can we do that? Okay. So we said you know policies, training and infrastructure uh we we are doing things as we did plus extending them plus some new things on the technal and the AI and the research uh the the the assessment but how do we do that because you know it's sustainability we need to you know we need to we're not in a silo let's put it this way. So what we need to do is to so to build the community partnership and most what is most important is shared investment. Open air from its start we have been relying on the national investments on institutional and national repositories diamond systems everything is being done. So we have been the connecting layer. So uh we are offering services and we what we need to say that these services are open source okay but uh they cost money they're open but they're not free. So we have introduced even in the past two three years the subscriptionbased sustainability model for the services. uh we are now introducing the service as a service portfolio especially in the EOS where a node a national node would like to set up a shop but you know they don't have the the the means or the knowh how to um to build their knowledge graphs to do the provide the guidelines so we can offer it then on the global aspect we are working uh with the usual suspects the coalition of open access repository RDA UNESCO referential uh and all of the aris. So we are uh more and more getting together and find touching points to to to offer services. And uh last but not least we are now uh hopefully early July we will be uh launching an innovation um uh program uh formemes and public good innovators. And why do we do that? We do that because a lot of SMBs and startups have been knocking in our door because uh to for access to the graph and especially in this AI uh era where they cannot afford to go to all the repositories with BS and get all the data. So they see open air is a very good opportunity and a hub for them for them to do business. So I think this is something we should collectively look at them and of course uh you know uh one of the things uh and this is uh how I'm ending it is that as as as as uh Inga said whatever we do in open air is communitydriven okay in community for us is the 70 plus members that we have and uh and and everything that we do a lot of the effort that we do is through um uh discuss discussing things in our standing committees, our working groups, our general assemblies for the community. So this is a lot of effort and more effort should go into that in order to make what we do sustainable because you know open air is an organization is a member organization and without our members we're not going to go places and uh and this is I think this is what I had to say on this and now we can we can start. Oh no. Uh Mocha Moira will present will say something. >> Okay. >> And then we can go to the questions. >> Yeah. Hello. Thank you uh for giving me the possibility to talk about my main topic in recent recent years which is how to persuade researchers to practice open science. Uh so how can the open air strategy ensure that researchers will embrace open science? Uh open air is an organization that serves the world. The world that is national and institutional policy pol policies they are aligned uh with open science principles through the UNESCO recommendation open science infrastructures and support are available both at international and national levels. But practically uh researchers will embrace open science if it does not require significant effort. So it is not difficult to prepare and deposit data and publications in repositories. Support is available for knowledgeable data stewards. How is the opener strategy addressing this? Uh through the first uh priority uh trusted open scholar communication infrastructures um opener compliant repositories for data and publications should be a mark of quality for researchers. So when they deposit they don't have to worry whether this is um reliable somebody will whatever do wrong with my data and so on. So when researchers will increase their practice of open science this will increase deposits in open complant repositories as a consequence these repositories will offer quality information to AI or more quality information. Um the same uh will happen with uh the third priority of open air strategy monitoring. When there is more deposit uh moni monitoring using these repositories will yield more realistic results. Uh my experience regarding training and support is that researchers do not attend training events but they really appreciate help when they need it. So they just want uh immediate answer to something that they need to fill in or whatever do uh and this is the fourth priority of open air strategy. I believe that building capacity is probably best achieved through a train the trainer approach because we will not get we don't get uh researchers to attend uh training here at the spot. Uh regarding the fifth priority uh legal clarity, researchers don't want to deal extensively with legal aspects. Uh so they expect legally sound tools and services but also support when they need to make some legal decisions. Uh as you mentioned Natalia that something is being prepared. So in conclusion, open air should be recognized by researchers as a safe and trustworthy environment for open science. This will encourage greater inclusion of open science in their daily research pro processes. So much I had to say. >> Thank you Moa. I think I think you know if if I can add something to it open air. Um you know our our of course we you know our goal is for the the researchers and the data stewards but uh as we as you know we use our members as intermediaries to train them in all of this you know services, open science, legal so they can because they are at the trenches and they are the ones that are they are actually giving support. You know this is this is for sure. So so this is thank you so much for for this. Now any questions? Somebody would like to you know to ask questions raise your hand you know anything you know because we would really really like your your feedback in what you heard or you know we're not expecting that you've read the the documents all of it or some of it but you know is there something missing? Uh is there something that you would like clarification? Is there something that um you're doing at your institution or your country and uh uh you think it aligns or not aligns properly or something you know feel free please feel free to um to to to tell us Everyone is very shy. So maybe I can have you know I can have some you know some um some questions you know maybe you know I can start you know with with Eloy and ask you. Okay. So you are part you know you were key people people people in in in in doing you know the strategy but you're also involved at your institution and national level in open science how could you you know how could you use you know the strategy how would that align maybe we start with you and the you know university of gent how do you think you know any any way that it could align you know or we can support you in what you do at your institution ution. >> Well, maybe good to know is that um here at the library, so um I'm part of an open science team which is part of the library. That is already an important po point to to make here. And uh the library just recently adopted uh the plan for the next uh five years up to 2030 transition plan it is called which is approved by the board of the university. In that plan, one of the things is the focus on open science and for example to uh develop uh own to develop not develop to uh support uh open journals in uh in our infrastructure and to make sure that researcher have a valuable um a valuable alternative to publish uh open access. So diamond open access and green open access are an important part of our strategy and when we look at the open air uh strategy with building trusted open scholarly communication infrastructures for for example this really aligns and uh this is uh important to uh to mention that when we talk about building capacity for an open science community um for example inmos plus we regularly do um next change and where we want to share uh skills and and talk about how can we together support our researchers. So not only working from a silo but do mutual learning but also with here the open air community and collaborations with other um international uh organizations like co for example. Um we really try here at Gent University to uh to um take these uh messages and this lessons learned and the mutual learning into our daily uh work. [snorts] >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. And for me it's kind of the the same as an already mentioned. So I think our the main uh the the the importance for us of the open s strategy is also uh uh I think it's it's a a document that uh aligns well with what we are already doing or want to do and and is also uh something that uh uh for instance we I think we have been working a lot on uh or for many years on on the three of the pri of these priorities on on open scholarly communication infrastructure. So we have a an ecosystem of of institutional infrastructures in Mino. Uh but we are also working at a national at the national level with the national repository infrastructure and the diamond uh uh uh uh initiative also aligning with with the European diamond capacity hub. We have been working a lot uh uh on on capacity building. Uh uh uh and again we uh contribute and we and we uh again for our participation in in in in open air and we try to align and reuse uh uh the things that uh we have work with colleagues in open air uh locally and we want and we also contribute what what we do here to the to the to the open air activity on on this area. And uh more recently for instance uh as uh some of you may know we have a new uh open science uh policy in Mino since uh last year. And uh just two weeks ago we um uh we have we have created and we have the first meeting of the the the open science obser Mino open science observatory. So we will monitor the the progress of open science in Mino and we will monitor we want also to to leers with what what is happening uh uh uh uh globally. So this is very important and there are two other areas where we would like to to work work more. So I think our work will be also informed by by uh uh open air uh um uh uh uh strategy. So uh uh the the responsible AI and research and the legal aspects of open science uh areas that we uh need really to to to invest more and uh and of course in this in this case I think it will be very uh helpful for us also to to have the the the open air strategy and especially the open air the way open air implements and the outcomes of of the strategy implementation from open air to guide our work here locally. So I think the the the the the key word uh is always aligning and aligning at institutional, national and uh and and international level. >> Thank you. Thank you. I think this is useful. Now there was a question by you know let me say if I do I pronounce it well. Your name is it RAR or Rudge? >> It's maybe you can. [laughter] Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. So I think this is an excellent question. Okay. Now uh I know that you are now a member of open air. Okay. So yes this is something that we're considering. Why? Because now we have this working group on AI bots and uh and what we call content hub something like that is we had a first meeting and I'm going to be sending tomorrow an email to everyone to continue. We we have complaints from repositories that they are bombarded by boats also open air and open air graph is bombarded by boats. No. So what we have is this community together to see what would be the best uh you know the best uh the best u um defense if you want to call it I don't know uh but also what we say is that the way um repositories exposed to both the PDFs also okay it's a it's from the past okay you know we put a license or not license and now uh the way the bots are are are using it is either to train LLMs or to use in some agentic AI um processes. So the idea here is that first of all the question that we have is that are licenses enough because now it's not about yes our content is open but what about reuse you know lawful reuse of the content you know what do we feel comfortable in sharing so what we have been experimenting is uh with um ODRL to make sure you know to have a few flavors of how we allow what we tell the consumers of these uh of these bots how they can treat uh you know the content. For example, one of the thing is that you know you always need to site it back to the original source and h what we are considering is the model where we have hubs national hubs or European hubs with open air where we gather all the PDFs because open air does have the PDF but we do not share them with the world because the the repository managers in the past have told us not to because they want you know people to go into the repositories but now this has changed. So I think you know users can go to the repositories and view the PDFs but then we can have other structures in order in order to serve these um bots or companies to get their content from the jointly from repositories but with our own terms. And what we were thinking and in the discussion in this working group is to how to get you know all the content in a few places hubs you know one or few places then we can put a layer outside to say this is you know the terms of reuse for you you know for whoever maybe you can we can say if you are a European theme yes it's free and you can take it or if you're non European you know entity you know you're Chinese or US or whatever because now we're talking about some anti yes you can have it under this and these conditions so what we are doing is yes we want to have this hub to distribute PDFs around the world but in a way that we feel comfortable with and this is what the working group will do so I don't know if that you know if I have answered your uh you know your question but yes it's in our plans >> yeah It's largely indeed my my question uh because uh what we might also be missing a bit is is like a single thing that makes open air important to our users as well. And if we can produce next to the uh content also such a hub to get them the full text uh and that kind of information then it becomes much more useful to them and it's easier for a researcher to give their content if they see it's for a needed goal uh than if you say well uh you have to register it because we want to count it or those kind of things. So >> the the thing is we I think you know this is this is a discussion because in the past you know in open air we have about 70 to 90 million publications PDFs and we are not sharing with the world because many repositories had asked us not to. So if this is changing because you know because of the effort or because you know it's not only giving a value to open air it's giving value to a repository and then open air what we do is that we have the views and downloads you know we measure them so we can return them back to the repository. Okay. So so it's a visibility thing. um we can think about you know stamping you know the the PDF of the repository with the name of the of the of the repository because it's about visibility right so one thing is the researcher asking visibility but also on the other hand is the repository asking for visibility so you know we need to we need to discuss this and bring it together >> yeah I think in the past it was important for us that people got it from our repository because they were actually individual users when you're talking about uh we don't see any individual users. So the the link to our repository is lost anyway. >> Um and >> we are actually being torn down by all these requests. >> So in this case it would be specifically useful for us to actually not have it directly from our own servers but to have it from a central hub. So the use case has totally changed. >> Okay. I'm happy to hear that and I I invite you to to join the group you know we we only had one meeting more meetings to come and this is this is the case this is creating you know creating value and then the next step for me of course you know uh many people may not realize you know may not want it but you know the value of it because that's going to cost money is you know can we have the consumer of these of these uh of these uh content paid somehow so we can return it back to the community. This is you know open air is only the intermediary. Uh we need the community I think you know needs some funding and uh I think you know if we give value for uh startups and all over the world to make business out of it you know with with just a few costs they should be able to do that. But again, one of the things that we want to to to discuss with all of you is how to express the rights the the the reuse. Okay? >> Because every country has different things, you know, maybe you don't allow >> together with the with the PDF with the files. So it might be a good thing to have like an overview of all the different licenses that there are and and what is and is not allowed within these licenses. >> Exactly. But then but then you know in the AI again in the AI era license may not be enough because you can have it open okay to the world but then maybe you want to give priority to European right uh versus uh no I don't know this is this is what we will be discussing in this group. >> Yeah >> but yes it is in our group and we invite you to join. Yeah, for some cases also might be difficult if you're asking money that is more than just the coverage of the costs then it becomes commercial use. [laughter] >> No, it's it's going to be the cost. It's going to be the cost because you know one of the thing is that the but but but now we need to think about the cost of the repository itself. >> Okay. >> Yeah. It's not just the cost of the hub, the intermediate hub, but it's also the cost of the repository. And uh maybe you know maybe you know so again this is not about making money. This is about the way I would see it and this is for discussion. Okay. But this is a personal thing is that if somebody is making money out of it is I think the community repositories especially in non-developed countries or you know let's say south or sometimes Eastern Europe or diamond open a journals not just repositories they need they need some funding you know in order to upgrade their um their um uh their infrastructure. you know think about you know we can think a lot of these things so this is why we have a discussion and by hopefully by November we're going to have you know a plan and a road map an action road map okay somebody somebody is uh is asking uh okay yes we need to show the video of Yuri if we can hear him yes Good afternoon dear members, partners and friends of open air. Greetings from Amsterdam. It is both a privilege and a profound responsibility to stand before you today as chair of open air to officially launch our new strategy for 2026 to 2028. This document represents something far more significant than a road map. It is the culmination of years of shared work, trust and commitment from people across our entire community who care deeply about how research is supported and shared. This strategy matters now because we are at a turning point in research and innovation. Artificial intelligence is reshaping how science is conducted, assessed, and disseminated. Geopolitical tensions are questioning what it means to share knowledge across borders. And the demand for a trusted, sovereign, and accountable research infrastructure has never been greater. In this rapidly shifting landscape, open air cannot remain static. Open science has evolved from a niche goal into a strategic necessity. Our community has collectively developed a strategy to identify how we will drive open scholarly communication forward and connect Europe to global efforts. At its heart, Open Air remains committed to our mission for an open scholarly communication system. We are not only a provider of a technical infrastructure, but a communitydriven organization connecting policy, services, and people. The new strategy reinforces our long-term commitment to openness as a public good. We see research intelligence itself with a public infrastructure. Something that should remain transparent, accountable and communitygoverned rather than controlled through closed systems and proprietary platforms. At the center of our strategy are five interconnected priorities that will guide our work over the next three years. One, trusted scholarly communication. strengthening the foundations of trust, trustworthy and impactful research. Two, responsible AI in research, ensuring AI systems used in science are built on open, fair and traceable foundations supported by transparent governance and public interest values. Three, open science monitoring, continuing our vital work in evidence-based innovation, intelligence, and research assessment. Four, capacity building, investing in training skills and in human resources across our network. And five, legal clarity for open science, providing the governance frameworks needed for sustainable open science. These priorities will be carried forward through open air's three operational pillars, infrastructure and services, training and skills, and policies. Together they strengthen the technical, human and governance dimensions needed for a functional and trustworthy open science ecosystem. A major focus of this strategy is the growing role of AI in research. We must prepare scholarly communication infrastructures, repositories and research services for AI enabled research workflows. At the same time, we highlight the importance of maintaining communitygoverned infrastructures in an increasingly commercialized research landscape. Our federated network involving national and institutional partners across Europe remains central to this approach. This is how we ensure Europe's capacity to shape its own research ecosystem. This strategy was developed through our most important resource, the open air community. This collaborative process involving members from across Europe has worked hard with this strategy. As a result, a special thanks to Ingavan Newberg from Kent University and Eloy Rodriguez from the University of Mino who acted as co-chairs of the open science policy standing committee. Thank you for leading this effort and to all standing committee members whose expertise helped shape this strategy. As Inga described our community beautifully, a family working towards an open knowledge commons. This spirit of collaboration between organizations and countries defines who we are, especially in an increasingly unstable world. Looking ahead, open air will continue expanding our membership and partnerships, our services, and global collaborations while investing in sustainable infrastructure, coordination and training, and policy alignment. We advance responsible research assessment aligned with Kawara, promote data worldwide, and reinforce Europe's leadership in open, trusted, communitydriven research infrastructures. Our strategy ultimately aims to ensure that open science remains not only open but also trusted, equitable and resilient in a rapidly changing world. We own this strategy together and this is my commitment to you. For me, this strategy reflects the shared work of our entire community at a time of growing challenges around sovereignty, security, AI, and the long-term sustainability of a research infrastructure. I'm proud to see our members and partners across Europe coming together once again to turn open science into something practical, the reliable and lasting for research and institutions alike. Together we will build a future where research is open, trustworthy and sustainable, not just for Europe, but for the global research community. Thank you. >> Very well said. I've been really captured everything. So I think um we would like to thank you all and especially again a big thanks to India Loy and the and the standing committee members. uh let us know please you know send us any feedback or questions that you may have you know send you know you you have our emails and uh for for for people here who are non-members of open air uh we would invite you and welcome you to the open air family because you know now we have an open membership so it would be really great to to see more joining uh this effort thank you very