Open Science means that scientific knowledge, publications and research data should be openly shared. This includes publications, measured and observational data, analyzed data, questionnaires, soft- and hardware, analysis scripts and tools, multimedia files, experimental setups and workflows, metadata and provenance data, etc.

CITEC believes that all research data created through public funds should be freely available for public exploitation, provided there are no legal or ethical constraints and the intellectual property rights of all involved parties are considered appropriately.

The free and public availability of research data is the basis for more transparency and efficiency in science, allowing to:

• reproduce, verify, re-analyse and improve upon existing data and results
• allow for the reuse of data in new contexts
• opening new paths for scientific enquiry and interdisciplinary collaboration
• preventing duplication of effort

Research funding agencies such as DFG are advocating Open Science to ensure that public funds are used in the most effective way. CITEC supports these policies and will make all efforts necessary to optimize the benefit of research for society.