Are you interested in presenting your work at the Open Science Day?

The Open Science Day is organized for and by researchers at KU Leuven and the KU Leuven Association, as an opportunity to take part in the discussion about Open Science. Researchers can showcase their own Open Science efforts, shed a light on difficulties they might encounter or share experiences and solutions.

Indeed, Open Science is an integral part of today’s research. It encompasses a wide range of practices and outputs across all stages of the research lifecycle. For instance, researchers share their publications via repositories, publish in Open Access journals, and disseminate early findings through preprints. They make their data FAIR, preregister their research protocols, and engage the public through Citizen Science initiatives.

Challenges include selecting the most appropriate channel for publishing research, considering the economic implications of this choice, as well as managing the learning curve and time investment required to implement certain Open Science principles. At the same time, researchers must navigate various considerations, including GDPR compliance, intellectual property rights, and research security. KU Leuven is committed to Open Science, guided by the principle: “as open as possible, as closed as necessary.”

Many things to discuss! Submit your proposal on the Open Science website.

In short

• For who: This call is intended to researchers of the KU Leuven Association.
• Formats: presentations (+/- 15 minutes, depending on submissions), posters, workshop. Other contribution types may be considered by the scientific committee.
• Language: English
• Submission: submissions can be made through the website
• Abstract submission deadline: 31 January 2026 (23:59 CET)
• Event date: 6 May 2026

As part of our blog series, “Stories from the Research Trenches,” we often invite researchers and colleagues to share their personal experiences. For this installment of the series, we are delighted to have our colleague Marleen Marynissen from KU Leuven Libraries Nexus Research Data Management team sharing about her recent Erasmus+ experience in Barcelona.

A Journey of Collaboration and Learning: My Erasmus+ Experience in Barcelona

In October 2024, I had the opportunity to participate in the Catalan University Libraries Erasmus Staff Week in Barcelona. This five-day event, held from October 7^th to 11^th, brought together library professionals from across Europe to collaborate, exchange experiences, foster collaboration, and explore the evolving role of university libraries in the field of open science.

The week kicked off with an international coffee break and an icebreaker activity, setting a friendly and collaborative tone for the days ahead. Hosted by the Consortium of University Services of Catalonia (CSUC), the event provided a platform for participants to introduce themselves and share their expectations. It was also very interesting and inspiring to see how CSUC facilitates shared services and infrastructures among Catalan universities and research centers, enhancing their efficiency. The first day concluded with a guided tour of Barcelona – allowing us to discover the city’s vibrant culture.

The next day we went to the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), where we explored the research support services offered by the libraries. We learned about the Library’s Research Café, user training programs, and cultural programming in collaboration with UPCArt. This day also featured the first round of participant presentations, including my own presentation titled: Empowering Open Science, promoting FAIR dataset publication through documentation and metadata enhancement.

On the third day, we visited the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), where we focused on teaching support services. We were introduced to La Factoria, a support service for digital production managed by the library and IT. The day also included engaging presentations and discussions.

At the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), we delved into open education and citizen science initiatives. One of the highlights was a collaborative task focused on creating an open educational resource, which allowed us to explore the opportunities and challenges of open education in practice. After visiting the UAB’s facilities and enjoying several participant presentations, we concluded the day with a social dinner.

On the final day we had a session to reflect on our shared experiences and key takeaways. The program concluded with a visit to the Catalan National Library.

The Catalan University Libraries Erasmus Staff Week in Barcelona was an unforgettable experience. Each location we visited enriched the program by showcasing its unique approach to library services and open science. The participant presentations offered fresh perspectives and it was really nice to meet and exchange ideas with colleagues from across Europe. Of course, the beautiful and dynamic city of Barcelona added an extra charm to the entire event. This week was a perfect blend of learning, networking, and cultural discovery, and I am grateful for the chance to be part of it.

The KU Leuven Open Science Day is an event for and by KU Leuven researchers. KU Leuven is organizing the Open Science Day as an opportunity for researchers to get involved, to share insights and to bring forward their own contribution.  

The 2025 edition of the Open Science Day will be organized around two tracks, with two different goals. The first track aims to give a broad overview of Open Science practices and principles, while the second will focus on research data, reproducibility and software. We welcome theoretical studies, more practical contributions, posters, and contributions that fit in a workshop format. Ideas for interactive sessions are explicitly encouraged.

You can submit your own contribution to the Open Science fair on the Open Science website until 31 January. We want to create a welcoming environment, so all researchers can apply, regardless of their research interests, career stage or level of expertise in Open Science.

In short

• Formats: poster, presentation, workshop contribution 
• Language: English
• Submission: submissions can be made here
• Abstract submission deadline: Wednesday 31 January 2025 (23:59 CET)
• Notification of acceptance: 28 Febuary 2025

Do you want to know more about Open Science or maybe you have ideas or expertise that you wish to share? Or you just want to take part in the debate? Participate in the KU Leuven Open Science Day and submit your own contribution. Accepted proposals will be published in the proceedings of the KU Leuven Open Science Day.

• Formats: posters and demos
• Language: English
• Submission: submissions can be made here
• Abstract submission deadline: Wednesday 31 January 2024 (23:59 CET)
• Notification of acceptance: end of March 2024

You can find the full details here. For any queries, please contact openscience@kuleuven.be.

The call for papers for the 11th edition of the Digital Humanities (DH) Benelux Conference is now open!

DH Benelux 2024 will take place in Belgium at the Irish College in Leuven from 5-7 June 2024 with pre-conference workshops on 4 June 2024. This year’s theme is Breaking Silos, Connecting Data: Advancing Integration and Collaboration in Digital Humanities.

The annual DH Benelux Conference serves as a platform for the community of interdisciplinary Digital Humanities researchers to meet, present and discuss their latest research findings and to demonstrate tools and projects.

• Formats: six types of proposals are welcome:
  1. long papers;
  2. short papers;
  3. posters;
  4. application and tool demonstrations;
  5. panels
  6. workshops
• Language: abstracts can be written in English and in any official language of the Benelux
• Submission: submissions can be made here via Easychair
• Abstract submission deadline (extended): Wednesday 7 Febuary (23:59 CET)
• Notification of acceptance: end of March 2024

For more information, visit the website of the DH Benelux 2024 Conference.

For any queries, please contact artesresearch@kuleuven.be.

Join us at the annual KU Leuven Open Science day on 2 May!

Program

The KU Leuven Open Science Day is an annual event where KU Leuven researchers from all career stages share knowledge and exchange examples of how they implement Open Science principles in their research. It offers a platform where researchers can inspire, learn from each other and discover how their research can benefit from these principles.

Keynote speakers are Muki Haklay (UCL London) and Thomas Margoni (KU Leuven’s Centre for IT & IP Law). Muki Haklay is a Professor of Geographic Information Science at University College London (UCL) and a renowned Citizen Science expert. He will share his insights with a presentation about Citizen science in Open Science, discussing how Citizen Science fits in. Thomas Margoni will give a talk about the (legal) datafication of Open Science.

Consult the full program on the event website.

Practical details

• When: 2 May
• Where:
  • In-person: at the Irish College (Janseniusstraat 1, 3000 Leuven) – register by 17 April
  • Online: link will be sent a few days before the event – register by 28 April
• Registration: click here to register
• More info: check out the event website for more information

If you are interested in using social media data for research or social media archiving practices, mark your calendars for 15 September 2022. The Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) will host a one-day online conference where the main results of the BESOCIAL research project will be presented and international and Belgian speakers will share their expertise expertise on topics such as using tweets as historical sources, lowering barriers to access the archived web, the opportunities and challenges of doing social media research, and getting started with social media archiving.

Practical details:

• Date: 15 September 2022, 9h-17h15 CEST
• Location: online
• Language: English
• Registration: opening soon

You can see the full program on the KBR’s event page.

On Monday 9 May 2022 KU Leuven will organize the 2022 edition of the Open Science day, an event where researchers share their experiences about applying Open Science principles in their research. This hybrid event (online and in Leuven, Irish College) is open to all KU Leuven researchers but registration is required – closing dates for registration: April 25 (if you wish to attend in Leuven) and May 6 (if you prefer to participate online).

The 2022 edition is conceived as a forum for discussion. After an outline of KU Leuven’s Open Science strategy by vice rector research policy Jan D’hooge, researchers will have the opportunity to interact with him and pose questions to an expert panel. The rest of the day will be devoted to two interactive panel sessions and a poster session. The panel sessions will be dedicated to the reproducibility and replication of research on the one hand, and preprints and (open) peer review on the other hand. You can find the full program here and the proceedings will be published on PubPub soon.

For more information see the Open Science Day 2022 website

On 2 November 2021 the 3rd ENCODE Project Conference (Multilingual and Multicultural Digital Infrastructures for Ancient Written Artefacts) will take place. This online conference is organized by the Ancient History research unit of KU Leuven as part of the ENCODE cooperative.

ENCODE brings together six partners within a three-year Erasmus+ Strategic partnership for higher education: Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Julius Maximilian Universität Würzburg, KU Leuven, Università degli studi di Parma, Universität Hamburg, Universitetet I Oslo. ENCODE aims at enhancing essential digital competencies in the humanistic training and teaching of ancient writing cultures. Specialized disciplines in the humanities which deal with ancient written artefacts have embraced digital change by developing tools for new forms of participatory research and collaborative publishing. In order to prepare graduate students and researchers as professionals who will thrive in this innovative context, new competencies and training are required in the rapidly evolving field of Digital Humanities and AI.

The ENCODE Project Conference will contribute to the acquisition of these skills by providing a program filled with inspiring lectures, giving voice to a wide range of experts in the field of digital infrastructures for research on ancient texts. Speakers are: James Cowey (Papyri.info, Universität Heidelberg), Kim Pham (MPIWG, Berlin), Pascal Belouin (MPIWG, Berlin), Matthew Munson (Formulae – Litterae – Chartae, Universität Hamburg), and Mark Depauw (Trismegistos, KU Leuven).

The conference will take place online via Microsoft Teams. You can find the full program and registration form here. Registrations are open until 1 November.

Additionally, ENCODE will also organize the 2nd ENCODE Intensive Training event on Multilingual and Multicultural Digital Infrastructures for Ancient Written Artefacts on 3-5 November 2021. These workshops will be held online as well. Sessions will take place in the morning (10.00 – 13.00 CET) and afternoon (14.00 – 17.00 CET). Workshop leaders are: James Cowey (Papyri.info, Universität Heidelberg), Mark Depauw (Trismegistos, KU Leuven), Irene Vagionakis (DiSCi, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna), Pietro Liuzzo (Universität Hamburg), Marta Fogagnolo (DiSCi, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna), Daria Elagina (Universität Hamburg), Toon Van Hal (Pedalion, KU Leuven) and Reuben Pitts (CEIPoM, KU Leuven).  The full workshop program with the timing and the call for participation is available here. All applicants for the workshop are invited to attend the general conference on 2 November. Because of the training event’s hands-on and collaborative approach, capacity is limited to a maximum of 20 participants. The deadline for applications is 25 October 2021. On 26 October the selected participants will be informed. For more information please contact Tom Gheldof (Tom.Gheldof@kuleuven.be) from the Ancient History research unit.

 

 

 

Would you like to discuss Open Science from a researcher’s perspective? Register for the online  study day that will take place on 3 May.  KU Leuven researchers will share their views on topics like reproducibility in research, citizen science, responsible open research and data sharing. Keynote speakers for this event will be Johan Neyts and Dorothy Bishop, professor of developmental neuropsychology at Oxford. Also have a look at the programme on the Open Science website.