This past December, we held the second Joint Roadmap for Open Science Tools (JROST) Conference. The three-day online event featured over 50 presentations and sessions from project leaders, funders, contributors, and advocates for open infrastructure, with over 540 registrants worldwide. Session videos are now online.
JROST was first held in 2018 as an in-person event of open infrastructure providers and advocates. The focus of the meeting was to create a joint roadmap for open tools and services in the open research ecosystem, outlining areas for collaboration, interoperability, and increased sustainability.
We further built on those key themes this year in highlighting examples where open infrastructure helped drive change, from helping institutional leaders like Evviva Weinraub (University at Buffalo) and Elaine Westbrook (UNC-Chapel Hill) save millions of dollars in cancelling their Big Deals with Elsevier using Unsub, to supporting national data efforts to combat COVID like the National COVID Cohort Collaborative led by Dr. Melissa Haendel from the National Center for Data to Health.
At this year’s event, we heard from the Ford Foundation, Siegel Family Endowment, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Mellon Foundation about how they’re supporting the evolution and maintenance of infrastructure across the sciences, humanities, and in civil society. Funding agencies including the Gates Foundation, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Arcadia Fund, Wellcome Trust, and Aligning Science Across Parkinson's shared their current work to not only fund infrastructure to advance open access and sharing of results, but how they’re taking a more active role in creating and piloting solutions.
And perhaps most importantly, the event provided a place for projects to share their work with funders, institutions, and their peers, gain practical expertise and learn together, and seek financial support through our inaugural Rapid Response Fund.
Check out the video archive for more. You can also read more about the Rapid Response Fund awardees in this post.
(Please note: due to some technical difficulties, some talks were not recorded.)
Our thanks again to our colleagues at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Crossref, ITHAKA, and Hypothesis for their generous support of this year’s event and fund. Interested in hearing about future events? Sign up for our mailing list or email us!