The “Life Science Training Around the Globe” talk series shares insights on life science professional development with an emphasis on local context. Email info@lifescitrainers.org to participate or complete a submission form to sign up to give a short talk. See full blog post for details.
Time and Date for Talks
LifeSciTrainers Community Calls March 2024
Call I – Western Hemisphere Call 16:00 UTC (check link below to verify time)
Call II – Eastern Hemisphere Call 01:00 UTC (check link below to verify time)
Register on Zoom for our community call or Join our Slack for more details.
YouTube: To be posted after the talk
March 2024 Talk
Nicolas Palopoli, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes – CONICET / MetaDocencia
Format: Short talk
Take home messages
- Community-based work leads to better results, especially regarding open science.
- Open science needs proper support and incentives.
- Volunteer work might be necessary but is difficult to sustain.
- Acting for equity and inclusion requires creating opportunities for more people to join decision-making spaces.
Abstract
We obtain better results when we teach and work as a community, and this is particularly true when openness is a central value. Cultivating a welcoming environment for open science requires anyone to be able to contribute and benefit from science and technology regardless of location, language, demographics, or career stage. Based on my experience as a Bioinformatics researcher and trainer in Argentina for the last 15 years and co-leading MetaDocencia since 2020, I will share some lessons learned on building inclusive and sustainable communities around open science research and training in Latin America. We will discuss that fostering equity and inclusion requires short- and long-term actions to create opportunities for more people to join decision-making spaces. We will see that open science needs proper support and incentives that resonate locally to increase its global impact. We will reflect on how volunteer work is sometimes necessary, but no open initiative can be sustained from voluntarism alone, and it is essential to invest in persons and collectives to build healthy community spaces. I will provide examples of how we operationalize these practices in some of MetaDocencia’s current projects. Sharing our experience in developing meaningful connections should serve as valuable recommendations to incubate supportive initiatives with local, regional, and global reach.