Social distancing brings life scientists closer togETHer

I’m the Program Director of the newly established Open Innovation in Life Sciences initiative (OILS) supported by Life Science Zurich. This initiative serves the life science research community at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich /UZH) by helping early career researchers understand what open science is to them and how they can use open science tools in their everyday research. I’m also a research scientist by training and a postdoc at ETH Zurich – but this is a role I’m transitioning out of in the middle of this global pandemic (great timing on my part, I know).

Open science is the movement to make scientific research and its products accessible to every-one in society – and by everyone it includes anyone from professional scientists to your grand-parents (who could also be professional scientists, but for the purposes of illustrating a point, let’s say they’re not).

In a sense, this pandemic is the best thing to happen for the open science movement as we’re no longer in a situation hypothesizing how open science could work, but (as a global scientific community) we’re now demonstrating that it can and does work. Journals are making articles on COVID19 publicly available and a number of grassroots endeavours are banding together research efforts for treatments, vaccines, and beyond. If anything, this is perhaps a perfect time for a young open science organization such as OILS to get its wings.

The driving force behind OILS is a passionate team. I work with an amazing Operations Director and an enthusiastic team of doctoral students and postdocs from ETH Zurich and UZH. Since we’re spread across the city on several campuses, we set up a digital remote work infrastructure early on (using Slack, Google Drive, etc.) to make collaborative work possible. Having to stay at home in lockdown has not slowed us down one bit; so what are we doing these days to pass the time?

We’re keeping an eye on what’s happening in Switzerland and in the world, especially on the open science front, and busy (remotely) curating an exciting program for our annual Open Innovation in Life Sciences conference, which will take place on 7-8 September this year (if the pandemic allows). We’re fundraising for both the conference and the entire OILS initiative, in order that we can step up our activities over the next four years to include more year-round public discussions on open science, and even an open science bootcamp. This pandemic has not dampened our spirits, but rather strengthened them. What we’re doing now in encouraging early career researchers to practice open science is more important than ever – it’s preparing our future leaders in science to be better collaborators, and driving science forward more efficiently and effectively.

For more about what we do and the OILS conference:
www.openinnovationlifesciences.com

Stay healthy and (at a safe distance) open!
Joyce Kao, Ph.D

The thing that keeps me busiest at the moment is: picking up full-stack developer skills in the fully-remote LeWagon web development bootcamp, and finding my next (paid) job.
My favourite app is: Slack
One book or movie I recommend: Marriage Story (movie)
And if all else fails, my instant pick-me-up is: checking out what my four-year old kid is up to and exchanging high-fives.