Open Science and the Chemistry Lab of the Future

Open Access, Open Data, Open Science, Data Sharing and Big Data are examples of buzz words that are used to describe the new opportunities and demands for sharing and reusing the results of scientific research. The advantages for the scientific community in gaining unrestricted access are immense, but only if the data is standardized, comprehensively reported, validated and authenticated. In chemistry and biochemistry the consequences of funding agency mandates for depositing and sharing data are just becoming apparent.
In the laboratory, interconnected devices are allowing new paradigms to develop in the design, control and reproducibility of experiments and procedures. This will involve modifying current workflows to integrate reporting standards and make use of automation. This symposium will bring together research scientists, data scientists, publishers, funders and other interested parties to review critically their needs and concerns and discuss how they see the future developing in the context of the highly interconnected, data driven lab of the future and the new infrastructures that are being set up.

Potential questions planned to be addressed

– Which data do we want to save, how and why and how long?
– What really needs to be reproducible?
– Are current reporting standards being used sufficiently?
– If not, why not?
– Are the current procedures for depositing data too onerous for scientists?
– Will technology, through increasing automation, fix most of the problems?

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