On 8 and 9 September, the University of Vienna invited Austrian and international guests to an Open Science exchange.
The Open Science Festival is a concept from the Netherlands, where the event has been held regularly since 2021. Three years ago, the TIB and Leibniz University Hannover jointly organised the first Open Science Festival in the German-speaking world. Others followed in Cologne, Mainz – and now in Vienna.
The Open Science Festival 2025 had an international line-up, both in terms of speakers and guests, and the programme was very varied, offering a wide range of opportunities for information, discussion, competition, and networking. The event opened with an entertaining and thought-provoking journey behind the scenes of science with Florian Aigner (TU Wien).
Other topics included the importance of open science and citizen science for society and research, as well as the great opportunities offered by AI-ready research data. On the other side, the dark side of Open Science, was also discussed in a lively panel discussion.
The essential content and results of selected sessions were recorded synchronously in graphic form by graphic designer Lana Lauren in her usual impressive manner. They will soon be available, along with the other contributions, in the festival community on Zenodo.
Our contributions
Livia Beck (TU Wien), Birgit Söser (TU Graz), and Maria Guseva (Uni Wien) had the opportunity to present a poster with the first results of the Shared RDM survey on the use of data stewards at Austrian universities. Posters of the partner project ARI&Snet, the overarching Cluster Forschungsdaten, and the EU project OSTrails were also on display at the exhibition.
Barbara Sánchez participated as a panellist in a panel discussion organised in cooperation with Open Science Austria (OSA), which highlighted the strategies, challenges, and opportunities of Open Science policies. Past infrastructure and digitisation calls were reflected upon, and considerations for possible future joint initiatives were made. In the same context, job profiles such as data stewards, research managers and infrastructure managers, as well as their distinctions, were also discussed.
Further information
• Website of the Open Science Festival 2025
• Festival materials in Zenodo
The next Open Science Festival in the GSA region will take place in Bamberg in September 2027.
