Creating a research hardware publication ecosystem: Technical and cultural roadmap

In this workshop, we will present the requirements of researchers/makers/engineers that we collected from our 15 interviews, discuss requirements of other participating communities, and draw a roadmap for the creation of the cultural and technological ecosystem which will eventually allow for the recognition of FAIR hardware as a research output. This goes in line with our work inside the FAIR Principles for Research Hardware (FAIR4RH) RDA interest group.

Relevance for the conference

Open hardware is more difficult than open data or free and open source software, and it has therefore been overlooked in discussions about open science so far. We believe the time has come to deal with the subject on a broader scale and give open hardware the place it deserves in the discussion about open science and open innovation.

Main target groups

We are especially looking forware to get inputs from university librarians, funding agencies, political organisations, scholarly communication professionals and other open science enthusiasts. We will be curious to get inputs from technology transfer offices and research software engineers.

Workshop presentation

Research hardware represents physical artifacts and may incorporate mechanical, electrical, and even software components. It is an inherent part of research, together with research data and research software. However, while the latter have been recognized as research outputs by funders and institutions (leading for example to the creation of novel career paths in academia), research hardware has not received much attention so far. There is also no specific publication pathway or specific repositories for hardware documentation.

During the last year, the Open.Make project collected user stories about researchers' perspectives on hardware publication. They combined this knowledge with the work of the FAIR Principles for Research Hardware RDA interest group and experience in hardware engineering to propose a hardware publication system.

In this workshop, we want to discuss this proposition with professionals in scholarly communication, institutions and political influencers. The goal is to create a roadmap for the creation of an ecosystem for the recognition of hardware as a research output, its quality control and therefore a publication system for research hardware engineers.

Schedule

Introduction [20 min]

Break-out sessions [50 min] for four working groups discussing predefined topics/questions:

• A platform solution to hardware publications, focussing on technical aspects.
• Hardware evaluation: processes, recognition and trust.
• Sustainability for a hardware publication ecosystem (diamond open access, decentralisation).
• How to create incentives and recognition of hardware as a research output?

Break [15 min]

Results presentation and further discussions [40 min]

Price

The conference fee is 50 €, please contact us if this would impede your participation, as the Open.Make project could cover this for you.