OpenFest 2023 - Call for proposals

OpenFest 2023 - call for proposals

6th-7th September 2023

Recognition is growing of the value of open research in democratising knowledge and creating a fast-moving, productive and collaborative research culture. Sheffield’s OpenFest provides an opportunity to explore issues around open research, share experiences and consider how open research can be applied in your discipline. Find details of our 2022 OpenFest here. 

This year, OpenFest will include an online symposium, ‘New Perspectives on Open Research’, creating space for researchers across the UK and internationally to explore broader debates around open research. There will also be an in-person Sheffield Showcase (with hybrid capability) bringing together researchers from the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University to explore current practice, share ideas and build connections.

OpenFest Sheffield Showcase (6th September 2023; in person)

Proposals are invited from University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University researchers and research-related professionals for 20-minute presentations, panel discussions, 5-minute lightning talks or poster presentations that explore current practice and/or areas of development or potential in open research at the Universities of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam. Topics might include, but are not restricted to:

• Experiences and perspectives on specific initiatives in open research, e.g. preregistration, preprints, electronic lab books, open peer review, open access publishing, OA monographs, open educational resources, co-production.
• Showcasing a network, collaboration or initiative focusing on or involving opening up research.
• Exploration and evaluation of a current or recent project, the open research issues / barriers involved, and the impact of the strategies selected.
• Collaborations made possible by the openness of research publications, data or software.
• Challenges in the adoption of open research practices and potential ways to address these.

There will be a prize for best poster in the following categories: PGR, academic staff, professional services staff.

Proposals are also invited from University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University researchers and research-related professionals for workshops (90 minutes to half a day in length) on any aspect of open research. 

We welcome proposals from PGR and MRes students as well as more experienced researchers and professionals - please use this webform to submit your proposal by 15 May 2023.

OpenFest online Symposium: New Perspectives on Open Research (7th September 2023)

Proposals are invited from all researchers and research-related professionals for 20-minute presentations or 5-minute lightning talks on current and future issues and perspectives around open research. Topics might include, but are not restricted to:

• Issues in culture change around the movement towards open research; vision(s) of the future of academic research and/or publishing; what an open, collaborative research culture could and should look like. 
• Ethical and ideological debates around open research.
• The impact and implications of open research practices within a specific contemporary or recent context, e.g. Covid-19, the climate crisis, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• The applicability of open practices and methods to specific research methodologies, topics or disciplines.
• Open research and public engagement strategies; co-production, participatory research methods, and open research.
• Current and potential future relationships between open research and teaching.
• FAIR metrics and institutional recognition; employability and FAIR.
• Critical-theoretical perspectives on open research.

We welcome proposals from PGR and MRes students as well as more experienced researchers. Please use this webform to submit your proposal by 15 May 2023.