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Welcome to the Digital4Science platform!

  • Thierry Van der Pyl profile
    Thierry Van der Pyl
    1 October 2015 - updated 4 years ago
  • 2 comments
    Total votes: 0

I am delighted to announce the launch of the Digital4Science platform, set up to stimulate conversations on Excellence in Science and its activities around the Open Science Cloud, e-infrastructures, High Performance Computing, Future & Emerging Technologies and the FET flagships. Discussions have been launched on all these topics and are just waiting for you to enrich the debate.

Our activities in the field of Excellence in Science are inherently forward-looking, building skills in the long term, focusing on current and the next generations of scientists, technologists, researchers and innovators and providing support for emerging talent from Europe and across the world. But we cannot do it without you.

I want us to build bridges between the scientific communities involved in our activities, but don't want to stop there. Through this platform, I also hope to stimulate citizens' engagement in what we do, to help make a better future. I believe that it is possible to have citizens participate in our debates and also make a serious contribution to the scientific process. Citizen Science is the perfect way to do that and a discussion on this topic is also available here.

We set up this platform to give you a voice; we want to listen to you, and establish a regular dialogue on our activities and policies. By talking to us and each other, you can contribute to our future policies and programmes designed to support science in the digital age and boost scientific discoveries.

I am passionate about what we are doing and know that you are passionate too. Together we can build a better future by focusing on the new technologies that are needed to push science further.

Please join us and help make it happen. 

Tags: 
FETFET Flagshipsopen science cloud#D4sciencee-infrastructures

Comments

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Euro Maker's picture
Euro Maker,
01/10/2015 22:06

Thanks for this initiative.

In relation to citizen science: involving everyone in the scientific process is, per se, a great objective. But there are some few considerations worth reflecting on.

Nowadays social networks open-up new possibilities for people to share ideas and debate on scientific challenges. That's great, in principle, but it brings a risk of mis-information. Who can tell if a certain post is scientifically grounded? One can say: the crowd. But that's not enough. Information spreads very quickly and freely on a network and it's rather difficult at a point in time to assess the veriticidy of a statement. How to cope with this in the future? On the other hands, we can't likely go back to the time when the scientific discourse took place only in few closed circles.

In popular social networks (and the web in general) there is a lot of "junk" information which is stored "permanently", irrespective of its quality. How to cope with that? Is there a way for networks to self-regulate so as to ensure quality and reputation?

This links also to the skills needed by citizens to be part of a network either as consumers or producers of scientific value. How can scientific infrastructures help in that respect?

Total votes: 2
John Magan's picture
John Magan,
02/10/2015 16:13

Indeed one recognised problem in science communication today is that "bad information drives out good" – especially in the social media.  Citizen Science and greater openness, with more public engagement with science is one way to address this. Especially when it comes to using public funding and/or actions that affect the public, we have to be visible and open our actions up to scrutiny – the very basis of the scientific method. We'll never convince everyone, but if we don't try, we are just making it easier for misinformation to flourish. We will certainly have to tackle the well-known problems of reputation and data quality that you mention and are open to ideas on how we can do this. For more on all of this, please see here.

Total votes: 1