Lero’s Open Science Committee was recognised with the Young European Research Universities (YERUN) Open Science Award. Lero is Science Foundation Ireland’s software research centre, which opened an Open Source Programme Office to enforce its open science goals. The YERUN award was given for Lero’s dedicated work on developing centre-wide strategies leading to better visibility, collaboration, and transparency of research.
The award ceremony was held online on 14 February. During the event, Professor Brian Fitzgerald, Centre Director of the University of Limerick, presented Lero’s efforts on open science and the OSPO’s role in it. “All our research papers, all our software, all our data would be open by default”, explained Professor Fitzgerald. “All researchers are encouraged to try to put everything [in repositories], and deal with the issues later”. You can watch the presentation here (starts at 00:48:30).
Lero opened its OSPO in 2020. “The Lero OSPO is an important strategic division of Lero with the goal of building an Open Source roadmap for Lero and helping our members and partners understand how Lero deals with Open Source in its day-to-day activities. It is also an important step in executing Lero’s Open Science policy,” commented Professor Fitzgerald in the SFI press release.
YERUN Open Science Award was given for the second time. It recognises initiatives that drive the academic community to adopt and implement open science principles in their work.