Tag: scientific collaboration

How open science and shared data can help tackle global challenges: The Crete Declaration

European research infrastructures commit to advancing FAIR data integration and informing policy-making through integrated scientific knowledge.

The global community is facing a number of urgent challenges, such as emerging diseases, epidemics, antimicrobial resistance, food safety, water scarcity, environmental contamination, and severe changes in biodiversity. All of them are intensified by the widespread impact of climate change. These interconnected threats demand “a fundamental shift towards systemic, integrated solutions,” a systemic change of perspective in risk management, and a long-term, action-focused strategic vision, point out representatives of Europe’s leading biodiversity, ecology and engineering communities, coordinated by the LifeWatch European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). 

Text on a clean background asks how open science and shared data can address global challenges, introducing the Crete Declaration.

Together, the partners offer a unified, systemic response to these critical challenges. In the Crete Declaration, published in a policy brief in the open-science journal Research Ideas and Outcomes, they outline how scientific cooperation can be transformed into actionable policy and robust innovation.

Recognising the “intimate and inseparable link between the health of people, animals and plants and how they interact within ecosystems,” the signatories aim to significantly strengthen Europe’s resilience and global leadership by sharing data and expertise, developing innovative solutions, and promoting evidence-based policies.

Text highlighting the Crete Declaration, emphasizing collaboration in One Health approach among European research infrastructures. Background of mountains.

They argue that research infrastructures across Europe are uniquely positioned to provide solutions “that are firmly grounded in robust science and evidence-based insights into the functioning of our living environment.”

A key message the team would like to get across is that “[p]olicies anchored in reliable data are robust and, when rooted in societal participation, they will become more feasible, impactful and widely adopted.”

In addition, research infrastructures can provide unified data and service integration through collaboration and co-creation with users and stakeholders. To this end, it is essential to embrace and support open science as a driver for scientific and social innovation.

Text outlining the aims of signatories to address One Health challenges through research, innovation, and responsible use of AI.

To realise this vision, the parties commit to strengthening strategic collaboration. Another critical commitment is to advance data integration and FAIR Principles for open science by ensuring equitable access to data resources, software, workflows, standards, and protocols across domains.

To support open innovation in critical areas such as conservation, sustainable food systems, and water security, the signatories will establish a “trusted, inclusive platform for stakeholder engagement.”

Finally, they commit to providing integrated scientific knowledge to inform the policy and public, supporting effective, evidence-based policy-making and engaging citizens.

The Declaration was developed during a special assembly held in Crete in June 2025, hosted by the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research.

Text inviting European stakeholders to endorse a coordinated approach to One Health research and innovation.

The policy brief containing the Crete Declaration is the latest contribution to the LifeWatch ERIC Strategic Working Plan Outcomes open-science collection in the Research Ideas and Outcomes journal, a one-stop access point to the most important deliverables by the research infrastructure consortium.

Original source:

Arvanitidis C, Ameixa O, Basset A, Chatzinikolaou E, Coman C, Companys B, De Leo F, Deneudt K, Drago F, Eriksson J, Ferrari T, Georgiev T, Giuliano G, Gruber S, Habermann J, Heil K, Hubbard T, Huertas Olivares C, Kotoulas G, Koureas D, Manola N, Marrocco V, Pade N, Portugal Melo A, Provenzale A, Psomopoulos F, Raes N, Robinson S, Ruch P, Schaap D, Stanica A, Stavropoulos T, Teixeira H, van Tienderen P, Tsigenopoulos C, Waterhouse R, Aprea G, Boër M, Casino A, Delauney L, Ewbank J, Mirtl M, Pavlic-Zupanc J, Penev L, Piera J, Pitta P, Puillat I, Richter D, Stepanyan D, Ussi A, Węsławski J, Zuquim G (2025) The Crete Declaration: Uniting Science for One Health. Research Ideas and Outcomes 11: e176120. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.11.e176120

Pensoft’s ARPHA teams with Hypothesis to encourage scientific discourse through annotation

In a new integration, the Pensoft-developed innovative journal publishing platform ARPHA teams up with nonprofit, open-source annotation technology provider Hypothesis to further enable academic discussion and foster collaboration in the spirit of open science practices.

This partnership makes Pensoft the second publisher to implement this technology across its whole journal portfolio.

Current and future scholarly journals using ARPHA, including Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal), ZooKeys, One Ecosystem, Journal of Hymenoptera Research and others, will have a new layer added to their content, so that anyone registered with Hypothesis will be able to add public sentence-level annotations within any publication and use it as a starting point for further discussions. All annotations are stored at Hypothesis and listed in the user’s account.

Upon opening an article published in any ARPHA journal, website visitors can now spot a dialog-box icon in the top-right of the screen showing the number of submitted annotations, which he/she can reply to at the click of a button. Annotations appear highlighted within the webpage whenever a user is logged into their account on Hypothesis.

annotation

Alternatively, the user can simply select some text and add a note to share his/her own idea, feedback, opinion or question inspired by the publication. Thus, the content of the research paper becomes alive, while readers could contribute to the study’s discourse.

“I am delighted to see ARPHA partnering with Hypothesis not only because this benefits our users and journals, but because it also works for the good of science and academia in general,” comments Pensoft’s and ARPHA’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev.

“What we’ve learned from implementing Open Science more and more vigorously in research practices is that striving for transparency and easier collaboration only stimulates scientific progress,” he adds. “One way to do this is definitely by providing the right platforms for giving and addressing feedback.”

Dan Whaley, CEO at Hypothesis, adds:

“We’re excited to see annotation brought to the many publications on the ARPHA platform. As an early member of the Annotating All Knowledge Coalition with a strong commitment to open research and transparent data, Pensoft shares Hypothesis’ commitment to facilitating conversations around scholarly content and improving researcher workflow. We look forward to working with the journal editors to integrate annotation into existing workflows to maximize the success of this initiative.”

For a better grasp of the Web Annotation Architecture, as seen by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), see their interactive infographic.

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About Hypothesis:

Hypothesis is a US 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the development and spread of open, standards-based annotation technologies and practices that enable anyone to annotate anywhere, helping humans reason more effectively together through a shared, collaborative discussion layer over all knowledge. Hypothesis is based in San Francisco, CA with a worldwide team. Learn more from <web.hypothes.is>.