The 3rd Basel Sustainable Publishing Forum 2021 opened with a keynote from Konstantinos Glinos, Head of Unit ‘Open Science’ at the European Commission. Dr Glinos provided an insightful update on the European Commission’s Open Access policy, and highlighted that to support the transition to Open Science, the research community needs to move from a culture of competition to a culture of collaboration.

Stakeholder perspectives

The first panel session, chaired by Ed Constable, was entitled ‘Stakeholder Perspectives’. A range of stakeholders were invited to share common challenges and solutions. During the session we heard the different perspectives of a traditional publisher, Kathryn Sharples from Wiley, and from a native Open Access publisher, Delia Mihaila from MDPI. We also heard from Wilhelm Widmark from the University of Stockholm on the challenges faced by University libraries, from Michael Alexander, head of publications at the European Society of Cardiology, on the challenges faced by academic societies, and from Julien Roche, on the implementation of the new French national plan for Open Science. The panel generated some interesting discussions and highlighted the importance of stakeholders working closely together to ensure a sustainable transition to open.

The global research community

Another vital consideration in the transition to open is to understand the impact on the global research community. The second panel session aimed to present the voices of different research communities from around the world. The session, which was introduced and chaired by Jon Harle from INASP, an organisation with a remit to represent global research communities, was fortunate to include presentations from Miho Funamori from Japan, Iryna Kuchma from EIFL, representing research communities from Eastern Europe and the Global South, Abel Packer from Scielo, Brazil, and Arianna Becerril-Garcia, representing diamond Open Access initiatives in Mexico. The panel presented a diverse range of perspectives and underlined the need to view the transition to open as a global challenge, not just a European one.

Open science infrastructures

The conference closed with a panel session focussing on Open Science infrastructures. As we transition to open it is important to remember that we must look beyond Open Access and consider broader open research practices. In a session chaired by Rachael Lammey from CrossRef, we heard fascinating insights from David Mellor from the Centre for Open Science, who spoke about Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) and of the important of encouraging open practices such as pre-registered reports. Rachael herself spoke about open data initiatives at CrossRef and how publishers can further support open data practices. The conference then closed with an insightful presentation on Open Science culture from Tiberius Ignat from Scientific Knowledge Services (SKS).

Transitioning to open science

The conference provided valuable insights from key stakeholders in the transition to Open Science, and highlighted the importance of working collaboratively. We hope it provided some valuable take aways for the delegates and fostered some new connections / networks. We are proud to have hosted such a global event, with registrations from 52 different countries. Furthermore, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our speakers and session chairs, as well as the MDPI conference team, for helping us to host such a successful forum. We look forward to continuing the discussion at BSPF 2022!

Catch up on the conference here

Missed the 3rd Basel Sustainable Publishing Forum 2021 but want to catch up on the recordings? Registration has been re-opened until 15 November 2021. Click here to register (FREE): https://bspf2021.sciforum.net/#registration. In order to view the recordings, you will need to first register for the conference. Once your registration has been processed, you can log on to the Sciforum platform with the same email you registered, and access the recordings. We hope you enjoy discovering or rediscovering the content!