The University of Edinburgh Library Research Support Team and grassroots organisation Edinburgh ReproducibiliTea are once again joining forces to run the Edinburgh Open Research Conference 2023.  

Open research (a.k.a. "open science" or "open scholarship") refers to a collection of practices and principles around transparency, reproducibility and integrity in research.   

As an active member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) and a signatory of DORA, & CoARA Edinburgh is committed to making open research the new normal by supporting and encouraging the adoption of good open research practice throughout the University. This represents a significant change in the way research will be conducted, and how the next generation of researchers will be trained.  

If you would like to participate in this exciting event, then this Call for Contributions is your invitation to get involved.  We encourage contributions from researchers at any stage of their career, including post-graduate students. 

Theme – Open Research as a Tool for Addressing Global Challenges 

OR cannot in itself solve any of the huge problems that face the world, but what role can it play in making our responses to them more effective, and in ensure that everyone is able to benefit from advances in research? That is the question we hope to address in this conference by bringing together researchers who apply OR principles to their work with those who would like to do so. 

This list of possible topics are simply suggestions and are not exhaustive: 

  • How can the adoption of Open Research practices help in the global battle against climate change, or in combatting future pandemics?  
  • Does OR have a role to play in improving equality and diversity within research? 
  • Can it support efforts to decolonise research and ensure equitable access to research outputs? 
  • How can we ensure that researchers at any stage in their career are recognised and rewarded for being open and transparent? 
  • How can we increase public participation in research? 
  • Who owns the data? Knowledge justice and data ownership in Citizen Science. 

As well as addressing the theme contributions should also be related to one or more of the following facets of Open Research 

  • Citizen Science, 
  • Research Integrity & Reproducibility, 
  • FAIR Data, 
  • Next Generation Metrics, 
  • Education and Skills 
  • The Future of Scholarly Communications 

Dates and Times  

Monday 15th May 1300 – 1700 – Workshops, in-person only 

Tuesday 16th May 0900 – 1700 – Conference, hybrid 

Wednesday 17th May 0900 – 1200 – Workshops, in-person only 

Location - John McIntyre Conference Centre and online on the 16th 

Possible contributions:  

  • Posters – should be supplied as both a printed and digital format, A0 portrait for printed and PDF/A format for digital. You may also wish to include a short talk (MP4 format, 3-5 minutes in length) that those viewing your poster online can listen to.  
  • Workshops - all workshops will take place on the 15th (PM) or 17th (AM) and will be open to in-person attendees only, they can be between 1 and 3 hours in length. Workshop facilitators will be expected to write a summary of the workshop to be published in the conference proceedings. 
  • Talks (15 minutes)  
  • Lightning talks (5 minutes)   
  • Research Cafe - 3 or 4 short talks on a specific theme followed by Q&A and discussion, 1 hour in duration 
  • Stalls - promote your Open Research service or tool during the poster sessions 

Click on Make a Submission to upload your abstract now

Registration will open in early April and like last year we are working hard to keep attendance at the conference free to all. 

Questions should be sent to Kerry.miller@ed.ac.uk.