The Association of European Research Libraries commonly known as LIBER organized an event which focused on exploring challenges open science faces. The London conference attracted delegates from more than 40 countries. LIBER is a global network of 404 university libraries, research libraries and national libraries.

The European commission has made open science one of its focus areas, writes Matthew Reisz of the Times Higher education. In open science, libraries play a crucial role and they take it seriously. Hence, libraries are trying to figure out bottlenecks holding research materials (journals and articles) back from freely reaching a wider society. That’s why, according to Reisz, representatives of libraries from across the continent came together to find out how to deal with those challenges through a common and coordinated approach.

Digital data has grown exponentially. Digital technologies are also widely and cheaply available. Yet, scholarly materials have not reached end users easily and free of charge. Mr. Jean-Claude Burgelman, head of the unity for science policy, foresight and data in the European Commission, argued that there is a need to match big data and digital technologies with the accountability, responsiveness and transparency in science . He underlined that big and open data are relevant for the EU economy as well. They could add up to 1.9 per cent to the EU’s GDP by 2020 . According to him effective open science programs, beyond providing better value for money, could lead to a sound science and society relationship. Open science, besides all what Mr. Jean-Claude Burgelman argued for, has also the potential to accelerate research, knowledge and development.

In his statement, moreover, Mr. Jean-Claude Burgelman highlighted areas where the European open science agenda should focus on: removing barriers and creating incentives, developing infrastructures for open science, embedding open science in society through citizen science, and knowledge coalitions to address societal challenges.

The EU has been working to realize those open science agendas through its Horizon 2020 program. For instance, Horizon 2020 requires all research funded by the EU to be freely accessible to all and available within a year from the date of publication. It has also put measures in place intended to facilitate and promote open access infrastructure development, like its Openaire repository project. Even though the steps taken are encouraging, it’s not easy to say that the EU has done enough to implement its ambitious Horizon 2020 Program for Research and Innovation. This is because independently run open access publishers and open access repositories, which could help the EU’s open science vision implementation, are struggling due to lack of funding.