EU research funding follows the premise “as open as possible as closed as necessary”, therefore open access to publications as well as the sharing of data (when possible) is now mandatory in all main research funding instruments. National funding bodies around the world also start adopting similar policies, and already experiment with open data mandates. Whereas benefits and challenges are mainly discussed in the STEM fields, social sciences and the respective branches of data science have to establish not only an understanding of the specificities of the social domain, but also foster attention and knowledge of ethical and legal implications of opening data in such a way that it benefits both the science and helps tackling societal challenges. This is of particular importance after the many scandals and data breaches in social media. Only recently Social Science One launched a partnership with Facebook to define novel ways of data exchange between industry and academia. Therefore, this panel discussion will focus on benefits and challenges of opening and sharing research data at the crossroads of science, policy, innovation and society. The following questions will lead the discussion: How to best guarantee findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable (FAIR) data on the one hand, while taking best care of data protection and privacy legislation on the other? How can we balance the advancement of good science, research integrity, reproducibility while also considering commercial and corporate interests as well as societal interests? How could the exchange of knowledge between industry, science and media be best organized? How could opening up data become an asset to commercial strategies? What infrastructures and regulations would be needed? What options of open web and social media data are there and how can we assure their quality and fairness?
Members: Axel Bruns (Queensland University of Technology, Australia), Katharina Kinder-Kurlada (GESIS - Secure Data Center, Germany), Christin Schäfer (ACSPlus; German Data Ethics Commission)
Moderator: Katja Mayer (University of Vienna, Austria)
