I am excited to share that the Digital Research Academy incorporation is almost done. We had our notary appointment last week, set up the bank account and are now waiting for the official registration of the DRA Digital Research Academy GmbH. I published my first post about the initial idea for the Digital Research Academy in May 2023. Now, just a year and a few months later, the Digital Research Academy is becoming not only an initiative but a company. Last week Joyce Kao, Melanie Imming and...
3 months ago • 2 min read
I am in the process of making my newsletter FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). Here's how. I am an advocate for Open Science. The FAIR priciples are very near and dear to my heart. I was excited when the Open Science folks at Jülich archived a bunch of my posts and gave them a persistent identifier (DOI, see archived posts here). This was exactly what I was still missing to make my posts more FAIR. However, I cannot expect them to take care of archiving all my posts and...
3 months ago • 2 min read
I get asked for career advice all the time (even though I am just figuring stuff out myself). Generally I try to help by listening and asking questions, but there is one thing that I tell everyone who wants to hear it: pick work where you like the people. How do you pick the research group you want to work with? My recommendation is to pick based on two things: Do you like the topics they work on? Do you get along with the people in the group (in particular your boss/supervisor)? The first is...
4 months ago • 2 min read
The academic publishing system is broken. I think we can all agree on that. But what if you want to have an academic career and at the same time stick to your values of openness? Here's my pragmatic take. I understand the fear of not publishing in established journals. We all want to have a good career and feel like publishing our papers in the journals that our peers and employers deem worthy seems like an important step. As a pragmatic open scientist, I generally recommend not to be too...
4 months ago • 3 min read
Have you complained about the inefficiency of public administration before? I think, you're not alone. In this post I want to share my journey with trying to help increase efficiency through data literacy in the public sector. I am a person who likes to solve problems. Most of my time is spent solving problems in academia, but I decided to leave my usual grounds for a special project where I can help solving problems in the public sector. Why do I care about solving problems in the public...
5 months ago • 2 min read
We are finally in the process of incorporating the Digital Research Academy and just when we need it least, I get a notice that my office lease will be terminated by end of July...and with that we are losing the headquarters of the DRA. Munich is a difficult city to find affordable offices, so I am hoping that you can help us. I love my office. It not only comes with a stable internet connection, but also with nice office neighbors (who are also looking for a new space), a nice view into the...
5 months ago • 1 min read
Students and early PhD candidates often don't understand all the talk about Open Science. They think Open Science is just "normal" science. The older researchers are the ones who teach them otherwise. Let's change that! In the process of publishing my first PhD paper, the journal asked whether I would like to publish open access. For me that was a no-brainer. When I talked to my supervisor, he said something along the lines of "you're gonna be an expensive PhD student". I want to mention that...
6 months ago • 3 min read
Spaces where you can gather with like minded people to discuss, learn, and collaborate can be really powerful. Could a space like this exist for Open Science? Walking along the little stream back to Dagstuhl castle (during the seminar on Research Software Engineering: Bridging Knowledge Gaps), I thought about how inspiring this place is, how perfectly set up for collaborating, learning from each other and also for having just a fabulous time. All the rooms, from the regular meeting rooms to...
6 months ago • 1 min read
The Open Science Retreat 2024 was a full success. We co-created so many things and had a wonderful time at the Dutch dunes. Read on to learn what came out of the retreat. The Open Science Retreat follows an unconference model. Except for the plenary sessions, all activities are optional. The edition 2024 was mainly organised by OSC-NL. Here's a few of the things we did: Unconference sessions: Collaborate on diverse topics from measuring open science to FAIR code (more below) Walks: Whether...
6 months ago • 1 min read