{"id":3504,"date":"2025-11-10T10:54:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T09:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/?p=3504"},"modified":"2025-11-11T11:16:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T10:16:04","slug":"barcamp-open-science-2025-from-threats-to-collective-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/2025\/11\/10\/barcamp-open-science-2025-from-threats-to-collective-resilience\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcamp Open Science 2025: From Threats to Collective Resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Safeguarding research and protecting knowledge infrastructures from political, digital, and structural threats was among the topics of this year\u2019s Barcamp Open Science in Berlin. Other sessions revolved for instance around shadow libraries, the underuse of research data management infrastructure and the question whether projects dealing with data management like EOSC and NFDI have \u201cgentrified\u201d the discourse on Open Science. The participants also performed interesting mind experiments and shared their Open Science success stories.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

By Susann Auer, Julien Colomb, Maaike Duine, Lambert Heller, Ilona Lipp, Tilo Mathes, Daniel N\u00fcst, Guido Scherp, Katharina B. Schmitt and Christopher Schwarzkopf<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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-This blogpost was first published on ZBW Mediatalk<\/a>.
-Save the date for the next Open Science Barcamp: June 10, 2026 at Wikimedia in Berlin!<\/a><\/pre>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The Barcamp Open Science 2025<\/a> brought together dedicated minds from diverse backgrounds to discuss current developments and challenges of Open Science. The importance of collaborating and joining forces when dealing with current threats to open knowledge were stressed by Wikimedia\u2019s Head of Community & Engagement, Nina Leseberg, in her welcoming words for the 11th Barcamp Open Science. On 18 June 2025, 45 participants from all over Germany and beyond came together in Wikimedia\u00b4s Berlin spaces. To get to know each other (better), to share inspiring ideas and to gain new perspectives on all things relevant to Open Science.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
In his ignition talk, \u201cOn the Value of Being Unorthodox: Resilience in a Time of Hostility against Arts and Sciences\u201d, Henrik Sch\u00f6nemann (Humboldt University of Berlin) also spoke of the current threats to science in general, and Open Science specifically. Henrik predominantly shed some light on recent developments in the USA. He started out with some bleak observations and forecasts, how science is not only threatened by governmental attacks on specific research topics or by funding cuts and restrictions, but also by cyberattacks and (natural) disasters. He continued on how insidious actors are trying to undermine Open Science principles and concepts. An example is the recently issued executive order: \u201cRestoring gold standard science\u201d, by the White House, in which Open Science practices are applied counterproductively and science is politicised.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Luckily it was not all doom and gloom in Henrik\u2019s talk. Projects like Data Rescue Project<\/a> and initiatives like Safeguarding Research & Culture<\/a> to rescue data and safeguard research are being established which show the resilience of Open Science communities. Or, as Henrik stated: That\u2019s the value of being unorthodox! You can find Henrik\u2019s slides here<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\"Participants\r\n
Open Science Barcamp participants in 2025, photo: Bettina Ausserhofer\u00a9<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
As in previous years, it has become a valued tradition for some session contributors to share their insights in a joint blog post, including critical perspectives on the current state of Open Science and new, inspiring Open Science success stories from practice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Mind experiment: building a case against Open Science (to learn from it)
by Ilona Lipp<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Putting Open Science on the map:
Geospatial metadata in scholarly communication
by Daniel N\u00fcst<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Geospatial metadata has the power to connect knowledge across disciplines. Imagine being able to ask: Which areas were covered by a measurement campaign for a research paper? Where were participants in a social sciences study interviewed? However, current academic publishing infrastructure doesn\u2019t support this type of metadata. Research contributions are rarely linked to geographic information in a way that is easy to use or search.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
This Barcamp session explored possibilities of geospatial metadata. The session proposer Daniel introduced\u00a0geoMetadata<\/a>, an\u00a0OJS<\/a>\u00a0plugin, and\u00a0OPTIMAP<\/a>, a discovery website. With these starting points, participants proposed ideas such as using large language models to extract location references from text and pulling coordinates from linked datasets, because assisting researchers in the creation of metadata was seen as crucial. And filling the OPTIMAP automatically is vital to make the case for geospatial metadata. New interaction paradigms, like scribbling on an interactive map, were invented on the spot. The group discussed ways to fill the map, including cited physical samples or data sets with known locations and extracting place names from tags, keywords or full texts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The benefits of mapped articles could be greatest for disciplines that don\u2019t typically think in terms of maps or coordinates, as it can help reveal new and surprising research connections. GeoMetadata can enable new use cases, such as finding Citizen Science projects based on users\u2019 locations, and serve as a basis for metascience to advance research equity using a global, well-understood, unconfusing, undisputed, and language-agnostic reference frame.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Daniel extends his thanks to all participants for their thoughtful questions and ideas. The conversation highlighted the need for user-friendly tools to share and explore geospatial metadata. The session reinforced that while the core concept is broadly supported, it needs clear value propositions and real-world examples to reach communities and disciplines beyond the traditional geospatial domain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
(Find an\u00a0extended report here<\/a>.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Open Research Data Management Infrastructure:
Building the backbone of Open Science<\/strong>
by Tilo Mathes<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
This session addressed the underuse of research data management (RDM) infrastructure and strategies to tackle adoption and sustainability challenges. Despite the availability of Open Source solutions to enhance data FAIRness (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), researchers often prefer familiar, proprietary, yet suboptimal tools due to practical and cultural barriers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Key Discussion Points:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n