The document discusses the benefits of open data in research. It makes three main points: 1) Open data aligns with the public good by increasing research transparency and supporting innovation and economic growth. It removes barriers to data access and promotes data reuse. 2) The digital age has changed research expectations, with openness becoming the new normal. Researchers must make data openly available to avoid being marginalized. 3) Open data fuels data-driven innovation. Examples show businesses creating useful services by combining open research data with their expertise, such as flood risk maps and tools identifying valuable artwork. Supporting open data management and partnerships with industry can maximize these benefits.

1. Open For All:
the benefits of open
data in a digital age
Mark Thorley
Natural Environment Research Council
mark.thorley@nerc.ac.uk
@MarkRThorley

2. My perspective
• I know:
– A fair amount about open
access and research data
management;
– A bit about scholarly
publishing;
– And something about the
challenges of getting research
data out there and used.

3. Research Councils UK
£3B

4. www.CODATA.org

5. CODATA Strategy:
Exploiting the Data Revolution
Exploiting the data revolution is the major priority for
international science.
CODATA strategy lays out three priorities and a plan
that shows we can deliver for ICSU on these
priorities.
Promote intelligently open data
 data policies: supporting implementation of data
principles and practice
Adapt to the transformation in research
 data science: addressing the frontier issues of data
science
Promote data skills, data scientists, data managers
 data education: capacity building (particularly in
LMICs)
New CODATA President
Geoffrey Boulton, FRS
Chair of Science as an
Open
Enterprise Report
New CODATA Executive
Committee elected at
GA in New Delhi, Nov
2014

6. Why ‘open’ ?
• Public good agenda.
• Research transparency and integrity.
• Expectations of a digital age.
• Data intensive science.
• Support for innovation and growth:
– remove barriers to access;
– get the stuff out there and get it used.

7. The challenges of research in a
digital age
Life was so much
simpler in the
‘good old days’
Laurentius de Voltolina - Liber ethicorum des Henricus de Alemannia
See: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laurentius_de_Voltolina_001.jpg

8. Then along came the future .…
• Schumpeterian creative destruction
– The disruptive process of transformation that
accompanies innovation.
• Francis Bacon (1620): comparing the invention of
printing to those of firearms and the nautical
compass
– These three have changed the whole face and state of the world;
first in literature, second in warfare, third in navigation; whence
have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no
sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in
human affairs than these mechanical discoveries

9. The digital & networked world is a
real game changer
• Expectations and opportunities have changed.
• A world where the expectation is ‘I want it now
and I want it for free’.
• A world where anybody can ‘publish’ anything on
the web.
• A world where people expect to develop services
based on other people’s material.
• A world where experts have to earn trust.

10. Open is the new normal
• Change in expectation of availability – open will
become the new normality.
• Those who say open is not an issue for them –
risk becoming marginalised, overlooked and
ignored.
• Responsibility of all those involved in the research
process to ensure that definitive, quality assured
research results and data are available to all who
need them when they need them.

11. Re-use by business & innovators

12. Flood risk
(www.checkmyfloodrisk.co.uk)

13. Radon in the cellar
(www.ukradon.org)

14. Rembrandts in the attic

15. Data innovation environments

16. Business led exploitation

17. What is business looking for?
• Nationally consistent data sets from which
services can be developed:
– Climate, weather, air-quality, soils, land-cover.
• Tend to be data from survey or monitoring
activities, not individual research data sets.
• Need to understand IP restrictions and updates.
• Exploitation value is in data plus expertise:
– Role for knowledge broker / intermediary.

18. The future
• Open data management becomes part of the
fabric of research practice.
• Those who fund research will need to fund activity
and infrastructure - the ‘well-found-lab’.
• Require intelligent openness and intelligent
management – can’t manage everything for ever.
• Specific support for business and innovation
through ‘data hubs’.

19. THANK YOU