Great progress has been made in making research and culture more open and accessible to all, with open access now an accepted norm. Open access is now part of a broader open research and open science movement that seeks to centre equity and inclusion in knowledge production. Where should open research and culture focus next, and how can collaboration across sectors help to make this a reality?
Panellists: Ginny Barbour, Petra Lundgren, Dilara Begum, Susan Reilly, and Catherine Clark
Moderator: Fiona Bradley
Ginny Barbour
Professor Virginia (Ginny) Barbour is the Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Journal of Australia. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Health, School of Public Health & Social Work at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and was previously co-lead of the Office for Scholarly Communication at QUT and Director of Open Access Australasia. She has been involved in many international open access, innovative scholarly communication and publication and research integrity initiatives. She was involved in the final drafting of the UNESCO Open Science Recommendation in 2021. She was previously Chair of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). She is currently Co-Chair of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), a Plan S Ambassador, and a member of the Australian NHMRC’s Research Quality Steering Committee. She was an editorial advisor to medRxiv in the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Petra Lundgren
Petra Lundgren is the Director of the International Science Council Regional Focal Point for Asia-Pacific, which is currently based at the Australian Academy of Science. In this role she heads up a team focusing on raising the voice of science from and within Asia and the Pacific.
She has over 30 years of experience working across academia, government, and the not-for-profit sector, all with a common thread of promoting evidence-based solutions to environmental and societal sustainability challenges. With a passion for incentivising collaborations around scientific solutions to global environmental challenges, she has held a multitude of roles at the intersection of science, conservation, impact, and policy. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular ecology and has spent many years working on issues relating to the impacts of climate change on socio-ecological systems.
She is an adjunct Associate Professor in Sustainability at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia.
Dilara Begum
Professor Dilara Begum is currently working as a Professor and Chairperson in the Department of Information Studies and Librarian (In-Charge) at East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is also an elected Governing Board Member of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). Dr. Dilara did her PhD in Information Literacy from Punjabi University, India. She was a former fellow of IFLA, ALP (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand), and IVLP (The U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange program). With an illustrious career spanning around three decades, Dr. Dilara brings with her extensive experience and excellence in research, teaching, and information management. She has published more than eighty (80) scholarly articles published in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, book chapters, reports etc. She is working as the Regional Editor for Digital Library Perspectives and an executive editor of the International Journal of Information and Knowledge Studies. She got the prestigious “Prof. Indira Parikh 50 Women in Education Leaders” award at the World Education Congress, recognizing her contribution in education. She was honored with the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award 2023’ by COLLNET, Society for Library Professionals (SLP) and Special Libraries Association (SLA), Asia Community for her outstanding contribution in research, collaboration, and library development. In addition to her academic and organizational contributions, Dr. Dilara has also been a pivotal consultant for over 30 public and private organizations, guiding them in developing their library systems.
Catherine Clark
Catherine Clark is the CEO and State Librarian at the State Library of Western Australia, with a professional career has that has incorporated roles in academic, public, school and special libraries in Australia and the UK. Prior to commencing in her current role, Catherine was the University Librarian at Curtin University in Western Australia.
Previous experience in understanding and knowledge of open access principles and practice includes leading the Advancing Open Scholarship (FAIR) Program for the Council of Australian University Librarians. Catherine’s current role has provided her with an additional perspective about the importance of open access to knowledge for wider society.
Fiona Bradley
Fiona Bradley is the Chair of IFLA’s Open Science and Scholarship Advisory Committee, and Director, Research and Infrastructure at UNSW Sydney. Fiona leads the library’s design and delivery of scholarly communications and open access, physical and digital spaces and services, and corporate services. She has previously held roles with IFLA and Research Libraries UK representing libraries and their users at global and national levels. Fiona is also a PhD candidate in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Western Australia studying transnational advocacy and access to information.