The program for the international Berlin 9 Open Access meeting has been announced today by the organizing coalition. Focusing on the impact of Open Access in research and scholarship, the event will explore how open, online access has the potential to transform the process of discovery and the translation of knowledge into benefits to society, as well as to enhance public engagement and create new opportunities for scholarship and business.
This ninth installment in the Berlin Open Access conference series, which convenes leaders in the science, humanities, research, funding, and policy communities around The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, will take place at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, MD, on November 9 & 10, 2011, with pre-conference meetings planned for November 8th, in Washington, DC.
The program committee for the meeting has been examining the role that Open Access can play in accelerating the conduct and communication of scholarship, and the opportunities this presents to the funders, creators, and end users of this information. They have identified five key topics to explore:
- Transforming Research through Open Online Access to Discovery Inputs and Outputs
- Creation of Innovative New Opportunities for Scholarship and Business
- The Impact of Open Access and Open Repositories on Research in the Humanities
- Open Education: Linking Learning and Research through Open Access
- Public Interaction: the Range and Power of Open Access for Citizen Science, Patients, and Large-scale Collaboration
Speakers for each topic area are being invited and will be announced this fall.
The committee has also invited keynote remarks from top U.S. and international policymakers, including a high-level exploration on redefining measures of impact.
For more information about the program and pre-conferences as they develop, as well as the program committee and organizing coalition, visit the conference Web site at http://www.berlin9.org.
Meeting Sponsorships are now being welcomed. For information, visit http://www.berlin9.org/sponsors.
Berlin 9 is being organized by representatives from the science, humanities, research, funding and policy communities, including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Marine Biological Laboratory, the Max Planck Society, Association of Research Libraries, and SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition).
Registration will open in September.
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For more information, contact:
— Jennifer McLennan, SPARC, (202) 296-2296 ext. 121, jennifer [at] arl [dot] org
— Christoph Bruch, Max Planck Society, +49 (30) 84 13 37 27, bruch [at] mpdl [dot] mpg [dot] de
— Avice Meehan, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, (301) 215-8646, meehana [at] hhmi [dot] org
— Prudence S. Adler, Association of Research Libraries, (202) 296-2296, prue [at] arl [dot] org
— Andrea Early, Marine Biological Laboratory, (508) 289-7652, aearly [at] mbl [dot] edu
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The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, issued in 2003 by international research, scientific, and cultural institutions, promotes the Internet as a medium for disseminating global knowledge. It has been signed by the leaders of over 300 research institutions, libraries, archives, museums, funding agencies, and governments from around the world. Signatories include the Max Planck Society (co-initiator and custodian of the declaration), CERN, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academia Europaea, Harvard University, and the International Federation of Library Associations.
The Berlin Open Access Conference Series supports the continued adoption and realization of the principles of the declaration and has been hosted in Germany, Switzerland, England, Italy, France, and – most recently – China. Berlin 9 will mark the first such meeting to take place in North America. The program will feature concrete steps taken by a variety of stakeholders to support Open Access and invite participants to consider added actions that might be taken – including encouraging signatures to the Berlin Declaration.
For more information about the conference and the Berlin Declaration, visit www.berlin9.org.
