Inaugural lecture by Prof Dr Birgit Schmidt

Open science has its origins in various scientific practices and the communication of associated ideas, data, and results. Despite substantial progress and successes, however, this cultural shift continues to face challenges, both traditional and, in some cases, new. 

Scientific quality is often determined on the basis of publications in the competition for funding and positions. A key obstacle to the normalisation of open science is therefore the integration of qualitative criteria for diversity, transparency and reproducibility into scientific evaluation. Challenges also arise from the coexistence of science-specific communication and publication infrastructures, as well as commercial publishers and databases, which dominate the market with their offerings. Open information and data collections are heavily frequented by web crawlers, which collect large amounts of data for training artificial intelligence systems. This can overload interfaces and services. The long-term sustainability and availability of open infrastructures and content remain fragile and are under threat when science policy priorities change.   Addressing these and other challenges requires patience and perseverance. This presentation will highlight how libraries are working together to promote and secure open science in a way that is both inclusive and sustainable.

Professor Dr Birgit Schmidt is head of the "Wissen als Gemeingut" ("Knowledge as a common good") group at the Göttingen State and University Library, where she coordinates open science activities and projects at both the national and international levels. She focuses on guidelines, infrastructures, competencies and measures to support the implementation of open science. She contributes to various international committees and working groups, including the OpenAIRE Board, the Knowledge Exchange Open Access Expert Group and The Guild. As part of the ENLIGHT European University, she leads an expert group on open science and teaches data and information literacy. At the University of Göttingen, she initiated the Open Science Göttingen meet-ups and sits on committees for research data management, research integrity, and data science. Since April 2025, she has held an honorary professorship in Library Science at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. She received her doctorate in mathematics from the University of Bielefeld and completed postgraduate studies in Library and Information Sciences at the Humboldt University in Berlin. 

The event will also be offered online.

Use the Zoom link to the inaugural lecture to participate online.