On June 10th 2026, 45 participants gathered for the\u00a012th Barcamp<\/a>\u00a0at Wikimedia, Berlin. No matter how far people had to travel \u2013 a living statistics exercise revealed that for some, Wikimedia was just around the corner, while for others it meant a journey of several hours \u2013 everyone arrived with a shared enthusiasm to connect, meet new people, and exchange ideas on all topics related to Open Science. From resilience and incentivizing Open Science practices, to archiving, data management and even dancing Open Science as a special highlight: Wikimedia\u2019s (dance)floor was sparkling with energy and lively discussions.<\/p>\n Barcamp Open Science 2026 Organizing Team, photo: Ralf Rebmann\u00a9, all rights reserved<\/em><\/p>\n The living statistics exercise ignited the first discussions of the day, as participants took sides on the question: is an Open Science future even possible without AI? Opinions were divided, and the discussion could easily have gone on much longer. Konrad F\u00f6rstner spontaneously stepped in at short notice to replace the cancelled ignition talk, and provided more food for thought on resilience and openness during times of crisis. His talk immediately sparked a lively discussion, with participants sharing their own experiences and perspectives. The participants made statements calling for new approaches, including the development of distributed and federated repositories for research data and cultural goods. They also stressed the need for political action to counter policies that threaten a democratic and science-based society.<\/p>\n The ignition talk inspired the first session proposals of this year\u2019s Barcamp. Some session initiators and contributors have shared their insights and key take-aways in this blogpost.<\/p>\n In light of political changes that threaten democracy and academic freedom \u2013 currently visible under for instance the Trump administration but also looming in Germany, like in Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD seeks to influence what should be researched \u2013 this session explored how Open Science can become more resilient and, in turn, help strengthen democracy. Saxony-Anhalt served as a case in point: a research-weak state with the lowest share of GDP spent on research funding among German states and generally low public support for science. Participants discussed a state-wide Open Science initiative that is already planned, though state funding is currently blocked ahead of the September state elections (Landtagswahlen). Networking with comparable structures (Open Research Offices in Berlin, Brandenburg, Saarland, NRW) and research networks such as Max Planck was also proposed.<\/p>\n Two core themes emerged: funding for Open Science and building public trust in science. On funding, ideas included joint archives, NFDI, the European Open Science Cloud, and TIB\u2019s decentralized, BitTorrent-based\u00a0SHIELD project<\/a>. On trust-building, proposals centered on bringing scientists closer to the public \u2013 especially to rural areas, which make up much of Saxony-Anhalt \u2013 alongside citizen science approaches and combining scientific literacy with political empowerment to counter science skepticism and help people distinguish fact from misinformation.<\/p>\n Strategically, university leadership was encouraged to proactively engage with politicians, and institutions were seen as potential voices against extremism and restrictions on academic freedom. Underused instruments such as UN treaties (notably Article 15 of the\u00a0ICESCR<\/a>, PDF) and the\u00a0UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science<\/a>\u00a0were also mentioned. An open question remained: should the Open Science community become more political \u2013 and if so, how, without merely \u201cpreaching to the choir\u201d?<\/p>\n Participants reflected on how institutions, funders, and journals are trying to encourage Open Science, and why these efforts still often fail to change everyday practice.<\/p>\n Many \u201ccarrots\u201d, such as recognition and career credit, were still seen as largely hypothetical because their promised benefits rarely materialise. For example, Open Science may be discussed during tenure-track hiring, but carries little weight in final decisions. Participants also noted that disciplines and institutions are at very different stages of Open Science adoption, meaning that no single incentive model will work everywhere.<\/p>\n At the same time, \u201csticks\u201d such as funder mandates, legal obligations, and institutional expectations are often weakly enforced. Participants pointed to funder requirements for data management plans, which are rarely followed up or checked for compliance. Participants from \u201csticky\u201d institutions with top-down legal obligations also observed that staff still look for ways to avoid publishing data because they fear that imperfections will become visible.<\/p>\n The discussion concluded that both carrots and sticks remain necessary, but neither will be sufficient without broader cultural change. Participants highlighted that the pace of science may need to slow down rather than continually adding new expectations. To address \u201cerror culture\u201d, they suggested promoting the idea, in the spirit of George Box, that\u00a0\u201call data are imperfect, but some data are useful\u201d<\/a>. Finally, participants argued that researchers should be more confident in badging their work as Open Science and framing it as a fundamental component of good science.<\/p>\n The session asked what happens to the research record if synthetic or AI-treated data quietly enters it undeclared by humans and agents alike. Participants worried about a growing flood of \u201cAI slop\u201d contaminating research datasets, so that future analyses and models are built on undisclosed machine-generated content. The group also noted that AI-introduced bias extends beyond text generation into literature search, data analysis and even study design.<\/p>\n They agreed that disclosure matters, but setting a threshold for when and how AI use must be declared is hard. AI-computed or synthetic datasets already exist in fields like genomics, and enforcement is messy. Two concrete ideas emerged: research instruments such as sequencers and microscopes could cryptographically sign or watermark the data they produce, marking it as AI-free at the source. And content-derived identifiers like the\u00a0ISCC<\/a>\u00a0(International Standard Content Code, ISO 24138) could help persistently identify digital content and carry origin declarations across systems.<\/p>\n Instead of chasing a precise boundary, the group converged on a pragmatic principle: be honest about what you used, and make it explicit. A short reflective statement on risk of bias was seen as more meaningful than a bare \u201cAI was used\u201d checkbox. Simply archiving prompts was viewed as limited, given that the same prompt can yield different outputs, but documenting which model was used can support bias assessment. Ideally, tools like electronic lab notebooks capture such provenance automatically, making room for reflection as the core of responsible AI documentation.<\/p>\n This session focused on providing a literature dataset including empirical research on Open Science practices and discussing its use for informing daily Open Science advocacy work or further science studies. In 2020, a group of scholars from the DACH-region started to annotate published research from 2000 to 2020 to capture Open Science practices, methods, disciplines, and target groups, as well as countries of studies, to gain insights in\u00a0international developments of Open Science<\/a>. The literature collection and mapping will be continued and expanded for the following years.<\/p>\n The question to the participants, who were Open Science advocates and researchers, was hence, what information on Open Science practices they need in their daily work and how the team could take these needs into account to enrich the dataset. One recommendation was that use cases or comparable good practices of Open science and its operationalisation would be a major contribution. Furthermore, the systematic survey could reveal more about trends and emerging Open Science topics that matter for science management.<\/p>\n Another topic centered around meta-science questions and methods: For instance, it is yet not clear whether Open Science is emerging as an independent field of study. Additionally, the team will have to check for opportunities to include the growing annotated dataset into larger Knowledge Graphs projects, to be explorable and usable for meta-scientists and Open Science practitioners alike.<\/p>\n Various types of events exist where Open Science is promoted, discussed, and advanced \u2013 such as the Barcamp. People who attend these gatherings are often already familiar with the topic and in favor of pushing the Open Science agenda. However, a (literally) critical mass is needed to achieve the cultural changes required for Open Science to become the norm rather than the exception.<\/p>\n So how do we involve academics and other stakeholders who are not yet interested in, or may even be critical of, Open Science? In this session, we identified some relevant target audiences and then decided to further focus on university students training to become teachers. We employed an empathy mapping approach, visualizing what our target audience does, hears\/sees, thinks and feels. This was then the baseline for discussions around how to practically engage this group.<\/p>\n We worked out that prospective teachers do not get a lot of input on didactics, are under a lot of pressure and also get confronted with current political developments. Engagement of this target audience should center on offers that sound attractive and does not seem like additional workload. We speculated that a promising approach would be to offer them practical tools for scientific literacy instruction and for demonstrating the benefits of science to students. Other highly relevant topics may be Open Educational Resources and the debate of \u201cknowledge (and school books) as a public good\u201d (which led to the Barcamp-Session\u00a0Open Educational Resources for schools<\/a>).<\/p>\n In this year\u2019s edition of this recurring session (edition 4 already!) we were a small group of people mainly from the natural sciences. The goal of an Open Science success stories session is to round up experiences and positive examples of successes that we or others achieved by embracing Open Science practices, tools and patterns of thought. We hope these success stories inspire and can serve as good practice examples to help get more people on board in doing Open Science.<\/p>\n Here are three of the success stories shared this year:<\/p>\n Our key outcomes of this session were that through trailblazers from the past that demanded and applied Open Science principles we can now see the positive effects and reap the benefits such as easier data publication and increased visibility.<\/p>\n The session examined the frequent replacement of school books, which are mostly proprietary and rarely available in digital formats. Participants discussed why this happens and how the situation could be improved. Although not a core Open Science topic, the issue involves similar stakeholders, such as publishers. The group envisioned school book content evolving into Open Educational Resources (OER), maintained by a community and potentially supported by commercial entities. These resources would be freely accessible online under open licenses, easily adaptable, translatable, and continuously developed over time. They could be printed on demand. The main obstacle seems to be the financial incentives for publishers, which currently result in a suboptimal experience for students and the public. The session also highlighted the movement advocating for OER in education and the upcoming\u00a0OERCamp<\/a>\u00a0at the end of August offering a valuable opportunity to connect and advance the cause.<\/p>\n The starting point for this session was the recurring topic of data rescue and the resilience of research data infrastructures. Efforts to create a decentralized infrastructure for cooperatively safeguarding research outputs, for instance using BitTorrent, introduce new challenges for research data governance. When the original repository where a research output was published goes down, the data governance mechanisms associated with it may also become unavailable.<\/p>\n The session therefore asked which situations may pose governance challenges in a decentralized, openly networked infrastructure. In a small group, we identified several scenarios: publishing a new version of a dataset, requesting corrections to metadata and the replicated metadata files, for example, if a researcher changes their name; or even temporarily restricting access to research outputs that may endanger their creators in situations of political repression.<\/p>\n There seems to be an unwritten rule at the Barcamp Open Science: every year, about half of the participants are experienced regulars, while the other half are attending for the first time. Our Barcamp Open Science bubble continues to grow.<\/p>\n Barcamp Open Science 2026 Participants, photo: Ralf Rebmann\u00a9, all rights reserved<\/em><\/p>\n Over the years, different topics have come and gone. Together, we have discussed numerous challenges and explored ways to further advance and promote Open Science. This took place in an environment in which the idea of Open Science and its practices seemed to be gaining ground slowly but seemingly unstoppable.<\/p>\n However, authoritarian tendencies and geopolitical crises are placing increasing pressure on Open Science and on science as a whole. At the same time, the rapid rise of AI is creating new challenges, for example with regard to the reproducibility of research results.<\/p>\n These developments were also addressed at this year\u2019s Barcamp Open Science. Yet they did not dominate the event, and certainly not in a gloomy or discouraging way. Instead, participants took the opportunity to engage in thoughtful discussions about possible responses to these complex and tough challenges.<\/p>\n At the same time, there was also room to look ahead. A dedicated session explored the future of the Barcamp itself. As a result, we are already looking forward to 2027 with great anticipation, fresh ideas, and new team members on board.<\/p>\n Stay tuned!<\/p>\n About the authors:<\/strong><\/p>\n Susann Auer<\/b>\u00a0is a plant scientist at TU Dresden and gives workshops in reproducibility in research with the community-led initiative\u00a0Reproducibility for Everyone<\/a>. She is a member of the\u00a0steering committee of the German Reproducibility Network<\/a>\u00a0(GRN) which works to increase trustworthiness and transparency in science. You can find her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mastodon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ben Black<\/b>\u00a0(ORCID<\/a>) leads a\u00a0working group<\/a>\u00a0at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) that supports scientists in research data & software management as well as data visualisation and scientific transfer with the goal of encouraging teams to develop as an Open Science Community of Practice. You can follow his latest work via his\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n Maaike Duine<\/b>\u00a0(ORCID<\/a>) works at the Open Research Office Berlin on the BUA Open Science Magnifiers project, in which she works together with various communities to develop Open Science indicators and visualisations for Open Science monitoring purposes.<\/p>\n Konrad F\u00f6rstner<\/b>\u00a0(ORCID<\/a>) is joint professor at ZB MED \u2013 Information Centre for Life Science and TH K\u00f6ln \u2013 University of Applied Sciences. He is also co-host of the\u00a0Podcast Open Science Radio<\/a>. You can find links to his activities and further information can be found on his\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tamara Heck<\/b>\u00a0is leader of the unit\u00a0information management<\/a>\u00a0at the Information Centre for Education at the DIPF. She co-organises\u00a0#oscibar<\/a>\u00a0and is member of the Leibniz Strategy Forum on Open Science, where she currently investigates how policy papers impact the development of Open Science practices.<\/p>\n Ilona Lipp<\/b>\u00a0is the Open Science Officer at the University of Leipzig and a freelance trainer and coach, helping scientists navigate academia and optimise their research practices. You can contact her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tilo Mathes<\/b>\u00a0currently works as Product Manager and Open Source Lead at ResearchSpace, where he supports the team to develop the research data management solution RSpace and the open-source community around it. He can be found on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>,\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>, and\u00a0Mastodon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lisa Poggel<\/b>\u00a0currently works as a data engineer and research data manager on the project\u00a0SHIELD<\/a>\u00a0at the TIB Hanover.<\/p>\n Franziska Scharkowski<\/b>\u00a0(ORCID<\/a>) holds a PhD in neuroscience and now works at the Office for Research and Research Infrastructure at the Medical Faculty of the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. She leads the Open Science Initiative at the Medical Faculty (Medizinische Fakult\u00e4t\/Universit\u00e4tsklinikum Magdeburg A. \u00f6. R. \u2013\u00a0Open Science als Transferinstrument<\/a>, German language) and a project focused on improving animal research and enhancing transparency around it. She can be found on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0(@franzitogo).<\/p>\n Guido Scherp<\/a><\/b>\u00a0is head of the \u201cOpen Science Transfer\u201d department at the ZBW \u2013 Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. He can also be found on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mastodon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Stefan Skupien<\/b>\u00a0(ORCID<\/a>) works as scientific coordinator for Open Science at the\u00a0Center for Open and Responsible Science<\/a>\u00a0of the Berlin University Alliance. He oversees the development and implementation of alliance-wide policies and strategies to foster Open Science and leads the Open Science Ambassador-programme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The resilience of Open Science and the attribution and disclosure of AI were, unsurprisingly, among the most pressing topics at this year\u2019s Barcamp Open Science. At the same time, recurring themes such as incentives for Open Science and Open Educational Resources remained firmly on the agenda. The ever-popular \u201cOpen Science Success Stories\u201d series also returned … \u201eBarcamp Open Science 2026: Navigating Challenging Times\u201c<\/span> weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6994,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[439151],"tags":[855,2228,84044,218419],"class_list":["post-4259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bericht","tag-wikimedia","tag-open-educational-resources","tag-open-science","tag-offene-wissenschaft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4259"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4268,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4259\/revisions\/4268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Barcamp](\"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/files\/2026\/08\/Orga-Team-Barcamp-1024x771.jpg\")
<\/p>\nResilience and democracy in Open Science
\nby Franziska Scharkowski<\/h3>\nLearning from effective carrots and sticks – how to incentivize people
\nto do Open Science?
\nby Ben Black<\/h3>\nAttribution & declaration of AI Agents in research and research data management
\nby Tilo Mathes<\/h3>\nA mapping approach to empirical studies on Open science practices
\n– what does the community need?
\nby Stefan Skupien, Tamara Heck, Maaike Duine<\/h3>\nHow to not preach to the choir
\nby Ilona Lipp<\/h3>\nOpen Science Success Stories IV
\nby Susann Auer<\/h3>\n\n
Open Educational Resources for schools
\nby Konrad F\u00f6rstner<\/h3>\nOpen for change
\nby Lisa Poggel<\/h3>\n
\nGrowing together in challenging times<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.fu-berlin.de\/open-research-berlin\/files\/2026\/08\/Gruppenbild-Barcamp-1800x-1680x1265-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThis might also interest you:\r\n-Open Science Retreat Insights: Can Open Science Survive Authoritarianism and Geopolitical Tension?<\/a>\r\n-Barcamp Open Science 2025: From Threats to Collective Resilience<\/a>\r\n-Open Science Conference 2025: Shaping a Bright Future for Open Science and AI<\/a>\r\n-Open Science Happy Hour: A Cocktail Recipe Makes Good Research Tangible\r\n<\/a><\/b><\/pre>\n
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