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Paola Castaño and Sabina Leonelli, in collaboration with Louise Bezuidenhout, Ismael Rafols, and Andrea Vargiu, argue for the critical role of case studies as evidence for shaping open science policies. Their work, Case studies are vital to monitoring the development of open science, highlights how case studies provide rich, contextual insights that can enhance the effectiveness and inclusivity of open science frameworks.

Fotis Tsiroukis and Sabina Leonelli have recently published the ELGO-DIMITRA Data Management Practices & Requirements: A Scoping Report, which explores the current state of data practices in agricultural science as implemented by the Greek Agricultural Organization ELGO-DIMITRA, a pivotal national governmental body. This publication complements a previous study on data practices in Ghana: Data Management at the Crops Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Ghana: A Scoping Report. Both reports provide valuable insights into agricultural data management across diverse contexts, underscoring the importance of tailored approaches to data governance and the role of national organizations in shaping global agricultural research. 

Sabina Leonelli discussed the ongoing work of the PHIL_OS project, as well as related new initiatives, such as the Ethical Data Initiative and the Public Science Lab in Munich, as part of a panel on the future of the philosophy of science. The panel, featuring also Heather Douglas and Holly Andersen, was organised and hosted by Alan Love as part of a major conference at the University of Minnesota in October 2024. Watch the video here: Round Table: Themes and Approaches 

Paola Castaño and Sabina Leonelli, in their publication, Interrogating and Monitoring Equitable Open Science, examined insights from four sessions held at the 2024 EASST/4S conference, mainly focusing on the challenges and proposed solutions in Open Science's equity and inclusivity. 

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Emma Cavazzoni gave a talk “Sharing Data, Sharing Technologies: Data-Technology Communities in Haly.Id” at the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering, and Technology (fPET) (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 1719 September 2024).

Emma Cavazzoni was chosen as a participant of the 7th European Advanced School in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (EASPLS), on the theme of Evidence in Biology and Medicine (Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, 9–12 September 2024)

Sabina Leonelli was the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society, at the US Library of Congress from 1 May to 31 July 2024, and will therefore be temporarily based in Washington to work on “Openness, Democracy and Technologies of Evidence”.

The University of Bologna has released a position paper which Sabina advised on, following the “Back to fundamentals of research - Reliability, Transparency and Reproducibility” workshop which Sabina keynoted on 20 May 2024.

Our postdoc Rose Trappes has moved to the University of Bergen in Norway, where she will do a postdoc exploring citizen science and its implications for epistemic diversity in ecology.

Emma Cavazzoni presented the poster ‘Model Systems Across the Lab and the Field: Organismal Samples’ at the Models, Representation, and Computation Conference (Paris, 14 June 2024).

The Royal Society report for which Sabina Leonelli worked as a member of the Working Group, “Science in the Age of AI”, is now available. It makes key recommendations on the future development and deployment of AI, including how it should be adapted to diverse research environments and levels of openness.

In May 2024 PHIL_OS, and particularly Hugh Williamson presenting joint work with Sabina Leonelli, participated in the Phenoharmonis workshop — a major meeting on data interoperability and making agricultural research “AI-ready” in equitable and responsible days; follow the link for a summary and video highlights (Montpellier/online, 27–30 May 2024)

Emma Cavazzoni presented a work-in-progress paper titled ‘Organismal Samples as Model Systems Across the Lab and the Field’ in collaboration with Sabina Leonelli at the Tenth Biennial Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP) (Columbia SC, 17 May 2024).

Emma Cavazzoni gave a presentation ‘Exploring the Interaction between Data Collection Technologies and Models’ at the Data Crunch seminar/discussion group (Exeter/online, 13 May 2024).

Paola Castaño gave a presentation about the OSDR AWGs at the 2024 NASA OSDR Analysis Working Group Symposium on 2 May 2024.

Sabina Leonelli held a keynote presentation “Human-Centric Open Science” at the First Tri-partite meeting of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) under the Belgian EU presidency (Brussels, 16 April 2024). The EOSC newspage summarized Sabina’ talk in its report, calling it thought-provoking.

The PHIL_OS project was featured in the April 2024 instalment of the Online Seminars on Open Science hosted by the Italian Reproducibility Network. Rose Trappes talked to PhD students and interested researchers about the consequences of open science for epistemic diversity and what lessons the project is drawing for open science practices and policy. The talk is now available on the @italianrepro YouTube channel.

Rose Trappes presented at the workshop “Subjects, Power, and Knowledge”, held at Stanford University on the 15th and 16th of March 2024 on the occasion of the retirement of Helen Longino. Rose presented her work exploring Longino's epistemic pluralism about behaviour.

On 23rd February 2024, Fotis Tsiroukis and Rose Trappes gave a talk in Exeter u3a’s University Liaison lecture series. Fotis and Rose discussed the open science movement, and introduced u3a members to the PHIL_OS project. Summary of the talk is here on the Exeter u3a website.

PHIL_OS was featured in the December 2023 issue of the Newsletter of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP), in a piece written by our own Emma Cavazzoni and Rose Trappes.

Sabina was interviewed by national Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, “Not just Big Data guiding science, but ethics as well” (17 Jan 2024).

On 19 Nov 2023, Paola Castaño participated and co-organized the panel “Building Open Science Communities in Space Biology” at the American Society of Gravitational and Space Research annual meeting in Washington, DC. The panel was a collaboration between PHIL_OS and the NASA Open Science Data Repository.

Rose Trappes published a post on the SORTEE blog. Together with collaborators in ecology and conservation biology, Rose discusses what needs to change in order to address the challenges and maximise the opportunities of reusing open data in ecology.

Emma Cavazzoni presented a talk ‘Sharing Data, Sharing Technologies. Data-Technology Communities in Haly.Id’ at the Philosophy of AI and Digital Infrastructure workshop (Exeter, 6 November 2023).

Rose Trappes held a panel discussion at the online conference of the Society for Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (SORTEE) on 17 October 2023. She co-organised the panel “Navigating the complexities of reuse and synthesis in the open data landscape” with Alfredo Sánchez-Tójar from Bielefeld University.

Sabina Leonelli presented a keynote “Telling Research Like It Is: Openness, Transparency and the Quest for Trustworthy Assessment”, at the 27th International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (STI2023, at the University of Leiden, September 27–28).

Sabina and Joyce started their collaboration with CSIR-CRI in Kumasi (Ghana), as reported here: “CSIR-Crops Research Institute Embraces the Culture of Open Science for Agricultural Innovations”. Joyce will spend three months at CRI as part of her fieldwork.

Rose Trappes presented on 19 August 2023 at the hybrid conference “BioGovernance and Science Diplomacy: The Past and Future of UK-India Dialogues”, jointly organised by the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice (GSEJ) at Kent University and the Indian Ministry of External Affairs’ think tank, RIS India.

Sabina has been elected to be President (July 2025–2027) of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social (ISHPSSB).

Emma Cavazzoni was invited to give a talk ‘Data-Intensive Pest-Plant Interaction. Studies Across the Lab and the Field: Philosophical Perspectives’, at the Centenary Conference of the Society for Experimental Biology (Edinburgh, 47 July 2023).

PHIL_OS work covered by Nature magazine: Sabina Leonelli was interviewed for a Nature feature article on data sharing tips, particularly concerning questions of data accessibility across diverse research environments (June 27, 2023).

At the first Philosophy of Science India conference (21–23 June) in Bengaluru, Sabina gave a keynote “Rethinking Empiricism for 21st Century Research”. You can also watch an interview on citizen expertise and the philosophy of open science.

Paola gave a talk on 5 May 2023 at the University of Cambridge, about NASA’s GeneLab plant experiments in “Defining ‘Space’ through Data Sharing”, during the 4th Philosophy in Biology and Medicine conference (PhilInBioMed4).

On 27 March 2023, the Italian Open Science Society organised a book launch and discussion round at the University of Trento & online, to celebrate the publication of our Plant Data Linkage volume.

Rose Trappes gave a presentation, “Niche-based theories of scientific practice: A scoping survey”, at the Perspectives on Scientific Practice workshop (15 March 2023, University of Exeter).

The December 2022 newsletter of the Society for Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP) contains a report with participant feedback, on our SPSP2022 Ghent pre-conference workshop, Methods Matter: Empirical Research in Philosophy of Science in Practice.

Our new volume “Towards Responsible Plant Data Linkage”, featuring many brilliant contributors, was launched on Friday 2 December. You could follow it online, and afterwards we had a small reception at 16:00 in Byrne House.

The whole academic year 2021/2022 until July, Sabina Leonelli was based at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, taking advantage of the wonderful WiKo environment to explore epistemic diversity.

Sabina Leonelli was a Lead Thinker, in the Thinkers Programme 2022 “Reproducibility and Replicability in Science” of the Royal Flemish Academy of Science and the Arts (KVAB). This work, conducted with Professor Stephan Lewandowsky (University of Bristol), aims to map the concerns and needs of research stakeholders from universities to policy-makers and industry, and assemble recommendations for how debates and evaluations of reproducibility should move forward.

Sabina Leonelli intervened in the Westminster Higher Education Forum Policy Conference “Next steps for the Research Excellence Framework” on March 11, with a talk on “Open Science from Theory to Practice”. Slides available here.

The project had three positions open for PhD students with specific, distinct backgrounds and interests. Application deadline was 21 February 2022.

New team members Rose Trappes and Paola Castaño joined us in January 2022 as research fellows.