The Open Science Community Torino Mission Statement

This document outlines the main goals of the Open Science Community Torino (OSCT), summarizing what the Open Science Community aims to achieve and how it aims to achieve it.

For the purposes of the OSCT, “Open Science” (OS), is intended as a common effort aiming to make scientific research more accessible, more transparent, accountable and rigorous. In these perspective, some practical concepts that fall under this definition of OS are:

Open educational resources, meaning up-to-date books, courses and other quality training materials that can be used freely and by anyone at any time through broadly accessible channels.
Open research data, meaning research data that is as open as possible and broadly reusable, following the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles. This is especially true for data created in the context of publicly-funded research.
Open research communication, including Open Access publishing, clearer and less discriminatory publication practices, as well as research evaluation criteria that are fairer and less prone to economic abuse.
Open source software and Open hardware, following the same principles of open research data. Open software, in particular, has to be not only accessible, but also usable by others and supported or archived so that it is usable and useful for long periods of time.
Transparent research practices, including methodologies such as open lab notebooks, preregistration, preprint deposition, open peer review and other novel review methods as well as rigorous and reproducible research.
Engagement of society, through meaningful, citizen-driven citizen science, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and other engagement methodologies that put science in service of the (local) community.
Removal of barriers in science, such as those encountered by researchers in marginalized communities, those posed by the inability to access expensive equipment and any discrimination based on location, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
Protection of research liberty and researcher’s well-being, including non-discrimination based on research field, equitable and merit-based division of research funding, the protection of researcher’s rights and the preservation of their dignity and well being at all levels.

Core goals of the OSCT

The Open Science Community Torino has four core objectives: Organize, Support, Connect, and Train the Open, Reproducible and Transparent scientific community in and around Torino.

Organise: Organise the OS movement and act as a point of contact between the research community and the administrators of research institutions when asking for infrastructure support or methodological reform.
Support: Support researchers in their OS efforts, by sharing knowledge, platforms and methods with the community. The OSCT also strives to be a breeding ground for shared qualitative and technical standards that can be applied by the whole community in a broad range of topics.
Connect: Connect researchers, technicians, citizens and citizen scientists interested in OS. This means understanding who these people are and how they are practicing – or how they could practice – OS in their research, and connect them with their peers. This also includes setting up and maintaining shared online and offline spaces where people interested in Open Science can meet and share their knowledge with others.
Train: Educate whomever is interested in OS on its core goals, how it can be implemented in practice and how its philosophy can be beneficial to the academic community and the broader society.

Find more information about the OSCT in the OSCT Homepage and by reading the OSCT Community Guidelines.