A Philosophy of Open Science for Diverse Research Environments

The Open Science Studies group is engaged in research, education and policy interventions to foster responsible, sustainable and socially engaged research and innovation around the globe. We are strongly committed to help bridge the gaps between social and academic life to foster planetary health, and particularly to ensure that research carried out by public institutions serves the needs of human communities and their ecosystems.

At the core of the Open Science Studies group is the PHIL_OS project (“A Philosophy of Open Science for Diverse Research Environments”, 2021–2026). PHIL_OS aims to develop an empirically grounded philosophy of open science that emphasises the diversity of research environments around the world and articulates the conditions under which open science can leverage such diversity to promote good research practice.

We are based in Munich, around the Chair of Philosophy and History of Science and Technology at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), where we are actively involved in developing the Public Science Lab and the Ethical Data Initiative (EDI); and in Exeter, at the Exeter Centre for the Study of the Life Sciences of the University of Exeter (UK), where this work started back in the 2010s.

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News

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Frontiers in Open Research Colloquium: We are delighted to announce the launch of the interdisciplinary colloquium led by Sabina Leonelli. Beginning on Thursday, 24 April 2025, the weekly hybrid seminar (Thursdays, 14:00–16:00 CET) will feature critical discussions on Open Research, research cultures, and systemic challenges, focusing on life sciences, data science, and AI. Each session includes expert talks and insights from recent research. Location: Augustenstrasse 40 (3rd-floor seminar room) and via Zoom.

The Global Metascience Conference took place in London from 30 June to 2 July 2025, and is organised by Research on Research (RoRI) at University College London. Sabina Leonelli joined a distinguished lineup of speakers, including Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council; Patrick Vallance, UK Minister of Science and Innovation; and Anna Koivuniemi, Head of Google DeepMind Impact Accelerator, to discuss the role of AI in science. She participated in two sessions, sharing insights from her work with the multidisciplinary Ethical Data Initiative and her Philosophy of Open Science project (Phil_OS). She also referenced her contribution to the 2024 Royal Society study on Science in the Age of AI. Her sessions included:

  • The plenary discussion titled “AI in Science: Accelerating Discovery,” where she addressed risks such as conservatism and the tendency to prefer convenience in current AI research developments.
  • The session “Funding by Algorithm: AI as Object and Enabler of Research,” where she offered a philosopher’s perspective on how AI and digital technologies are transforming science, along with the policy and funding challenges they present.

Nathanael Sheehan gave the Keynote talk titled A journey from data ethics to AI governance for the "Data science for life scientists" course at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in the UK on 19 June 2025.

Nathanael Sheehan gave the talk Handling Data & Data Ethics to the alignAI-MSCA Doctoral Network held at the Garching Campus of the Technical University of Munich on 13 May 2025. His talk addressed data ethics, exploring the environmental, social, and epistemic risks of large-scale data use. He emphasised the importance of data transparency and representativeness, reinforced by frameworks like FAIR and CARE principles.

The Res Philosophica 2025 Conference “Pragmatism and Scientific Inquiry”, held in St Louis on April 25-26, 2025, provided an opportunity for Leonelli to trace and compare the intellectual origins and legacies of Popperian and Bergsonian approaches to the Open Society, and point to their implications for contemporary views on Open Science.

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Events

19-21 November 2025: The Open World Conference. Leonelli will keynote the Niels Bohr Open World Conference in Copenhagen, with a talk on ”Openness and the Scope of Data-Intensive Research”.

27 August 2025: Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy. Leonelli will be keynoting the biennial meeting of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy (SIFA 2025) in Torino.

An international workshop, titled "Empirical Methods for a Social Epistemology of Interdisciplinary Research," will be held on 28 July 2025 at TUM. Organized by the Chair of Philosophy and History of Science and Technology, the workshop brings together members of the SoPP and the PHIL_OS projects to discuss the use of empirical methods, and particularly qualitative social science methods, to foster philosophical investigation of interdisciplinary research practices. Check the Program for more information.

20-25 July 2025, Porto (Portugal): Conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology. The full team of the Chair in Philosophy and History of Science will attend the Biennial Conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology in Porto. We submitted 6 symposia and participated in an additional 3! Check the Program for more information on the sessions and participants.

24-27 June 2025: Philosophy of technology. Leonelli keynoted the Biennial Conference of the Society for the Philosophy of Technology 2024, University of Eindhoven, June 24-27, with a talk on “Environmental Intelligence: Subverting the Philosophical Premises for AI”https://spt2025.dryfta.com/index.php

17-19 June 2025, Taipei: First Conference of the Asia-Pacific Philosophy of Science Association. Leonelli keynoted the Asia-Pacific Philosophy of Science Association 2025 Biannual Conference in association with the Taiwan Association for Logic, Methodology, Philosophy of Science and Technology (APPSA 2025), Taipei, Taiwan: https://appsa2025taiwan.mystrikingly.com/

16 May 2025: BEMAC lecture, Milan Bocconi. Leonelli gave the BEMACS Distinguished Lecture at Bocconi University in Milan, under the title of ”Is a Data Society an Open Society?” https://www.unibocconi.eu/wps/wcm/connect/bocconi/sitopubblico_en/navigation+tree/home/programs/bachelor+of+science/economics+management+and+computer+science/bemacstalks/

The Phil_OS project hosted a workshop on 28–29 April 2025 in Landshut (Bavaria). This workshop focused on the diversity of research environments and their alignment with broader scientific transformations, particularly regarding Open Science policies. Check the Program and presentations for more details.

25-27 April 2025: Keynote at Pragmatism conference. Leonelli was an invited speaker at the Res Philosophica International Conference ”Pragmatism and Scientific Inquiry” held in St Louis, Missouri, April 25-26, where she presented results from research conducted at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, in 2024.

Emma Cavazzoni gave a talk titled "Data-technology communities: collaboration and diversity in data- and technology-intensive multidisciplinary research" at the German Society for Philosophy of Science conference. The event occurred in Erlangen from the 24th to the 26th of March.

22-25 March 2025: German Society for the Philosophy of Science. Leonelli keynoted the triennial conference of the German Society for the Philosophy of Science https://www.wissphil.de/ , with a talk discussing differing philosophical views on empirical inquiry and its role in an open society. She also presented, together with Rachel Ankeny, a paper on data models in precision toxicology.

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Project meetings

The project has monthly meetings open to collaborators around the world.

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