Open science and the chemistry lab of the future.

The title refers to an upcoming symposium on the topic on 22-24 May, 2017.  I quote here some of the issues tabled for discussion:

  • Which data do we want to save, how and why and how long?
  • What really needs to be reproducible?
  • Are current reporting standards being used sufficiently?
  • Are the current procedures for depositing data too onerous for scientists?
  • Will technology, through increasing automation, fix most of the problems?
  • Is bureaucracy killing creativity in science?
  • Have we got a reproducibility crisis?
  • If we save and share data routinely, what is the future of the publication?
  • Are funding agencies causing science to be too short term in their quest for value for money?
  • Are chemists repeating too many experiments?
  • What can chemistry learn from other areas and what can they learn from chemistry?

For more information, visit www.beilstein-institut.de/en/symposia/open-science. If you have your own questions,  or indeed comments at this stage, do append them as a comment.  I don’t know what “social media” will be used to allow people to participate (science by Twitter feed?) and whether recordings will be made, but after the event I will update here with any further interesting news.

Henry Rzepa

Henry Rzepa is Emeritus Professor of Computational Chemistry at Imperial College London.

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