Open Access to Biodiversity Scientific Data: A Comparative

Study

Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay and Andrés GuadamuzNational Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) Institute for

Communication Sciences, FranceUniversity of Sussex, School of Law, UK

17th ICABR Conference“Innovation and Policy for the Bioeconomy”

Ravello (Italy): June 18 - 21, 2013

The future is open

EU Commission

“The vision underlying the Commission’s strategy on open data and knowledge circulation is that information already paid for by the public purse should not be paid for again each time it is accessed or used, and that it should benefit European companies and citizens to the full. This means making publicly-funded scientific information available online, at no extra cost, to European researchers and citizens via sustainable e-infrastructures, also ensuring long-term access to avoid losing scientific information of unique value.”

White House OA Declaration

“The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hereby directs each Federal agency with over $100 million in annual conduct of research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government. This includes any results published in peer-reviewed scholarly publications that are based on research that directly arises from Federal funds […]

Just in the UK

• Research Councils UK

• Other funding bodies (Wellcome)

• Finch Report

• UK Government OS promise

Biopiracy

Bioprospecting

Controversies about OA

• Biopiracy• TK• HGS• Bioprospection• INBIO• Because if data from indigenous knowledge

and developing countries is made available under open access conditions, pharmaceutical companies will be able to exploit them without compensation for the local communities.

What is the legal framework for protection of biodiversity?

Sample collection

Basic research

Databases

Metadata

Publications

Legal protection of biodiversity data

Copyright Patents Database right (EU) Other/No protection

- Notes- Pictures- Metadata- Publications- Reports- Data- Software- Compilation

- Bioprospecting- Processes- Methods- Software

- Data- Databases- Thesaurus- Ontologies

- Brands- Materials- Specimens- Plant varieties- Genetic banks- Designs- Geolocation information

Contrasting legal regimes

• CDB• Copyright• Patents

Biodiversity data

Environmental data Scientific data Geospatial data Cultural data Metadata

Various status for biodiversity data

• PSI Directive• Inspire Directive• Public access to environmental information

Directive• Subjected to the location of rare species• Right of access does not convey a right of

reuse

Biodiversity datasets

Held by Natural history museums Research institutions Members of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)

Open Data

Open Access and Open Science movements

Changing social norms in

scientific communities

journals publishing agreements

funders or institutions

Recommandations

OECD encouraging the deposit of the underlying dataset at the time of the publication of the article

The EU Commission Recommendation of 17 July 2012 on access to and preservation of scientific information

targets scientific publications and research data that receive public funds

asks for clear open access policy no later than 6 months after publication, or 12 months for the social sciences

No OA mandate

Horizon 2020neither for publicationsnor for underlying datasetsbeyond projects funded by EU research programmes

PSI DirectiveNeither include data from research and sciencenor data produced with public funding.

Licensing a dataset...

Raw data Data sheet Model, taxonomy, ontology, structure Database

not all of them are protected copyright for compilation EU Directive on sui generis rights Access-control mecanisms PSI, Inspire, Reach, physical PD Licence or terms of use

Terms of use

Governance choicesBetween all rights reservedAnd Open Access options

Databases terms of use Reserves rights for education and research Excluding companies Freely used, but on request Contradictory terms of Hidden restrictions Commercial use or private use Botanical Garden of the City of Geneva use New Mexico Biodiversity Collections Consortium

ToU

The different formsof Open Access

Technical barriers

Commons

Licensing frameworks allowing reusability

Do not assert IPR statement: GBIF data sharing agreement

Public domain to allow datamining The Attribution requirement

Opening Up the Natural History Heritage for Europeana CC0

GBIF Data Publishing Framework a technical policy support

Researchers evaluation = publication citation

Attribution = database tracking + data citation

PhytoKeys Journal infrastructure

Connect article and underlying data Methods to implement policies for data

publication linking data to metadata indexation to facilitate data mining

Future work

Clarify which legal provisions apply Develop automated mechanisms for data

citation as an incentive to share data Replace terms of use that makes it impossible

to perform data mining and reuse the data

Thanks

@melanieddr@technollama